Converting an HP DL380e Gen8 14xLFF Server to a Disk Shelf

[FlyingTexan]

Interesting; I have 2 X 12 dl380 full of 24 HDDs. No problem with the power of a 700w ATX ps, AFTER re-pining the cables [re; earlier pages here]. Can be a little difficult. I have various HDD from 8 to 18TB. The two 18TB Exos are six months old. #1 started giving 'Smart Data' test errors after 4 months and Seagate replaced it. Then #2 18TB Exos stopped working without any error messages last week! Sending it back to Seagate now...

Great news! How are you powering these? Did you do a 6 ->8pin for each, 8->8pin for each? I see 8 pin cables with two 8pins on the end so didn't know how many drives I could run off one cable successfully.

I'm really glad to hear you did the repinning. I've ordered a voltemeter and few 25inch cables.Do you have any special cooling? Since I don't have the drive racks in hand yet I don't know what kind of cooling they can take. I'm trying to keep everything as quiet as possible. Do they have internal fans and if so are they pretty quiet or can they be swapped out with Arctics?

 

[bluemoon21]

Give me a bit of time and I'll try to answer; I am very old [76] disabled geek [one hand] living in Perth Australia [Very Hot]. BUT If I can do it, anybody can. The 2 HPs Backplanes are on a shelf [open plan] vertical, with BIG brackets supporting them. I will try to find pics later. The mother board is a standard HPZ440. It WAS in the standard HP Z440 case for over a year with normal HP power supply driving the CPU, GPU, HBA etc, but with another ATX power supply just going to the 2 X 12 dl380. Now the MB [only the MB] is a big server case, [more on that later]. Thought temperature was going to be a problem, but with 4 fans on top, it's been ok. The enc pics are from the 1st pages here. I will continue later.

 

[bluemoon21]

These are pics when I was testing the open plan arrangement. I am using 3D printed supports for underneath BPs and also for HDD support. Sorry, I have not taken the up to date ones, b'coz of forgetting and it's difficult with only 3 fingers & 1 thumb working and now my hand has started to shake when taking pictures!

 

[bluemoon21]

My transferring to a 24 bay Server Case from a Standard HPZ440 was bad. Fitting the MB etc was no problem, but the continuing problems with the Hot-Swap HDD cases and the power supply was deficient in the 5v was annoying. A very standard ATX ps will only power say 20 HDDs b'cos of the 5v. Using 2 ps overcame this problem. But the Hot-Swap was/is very problematic. Not fitting securely, not lining-up, dropping out, bent pins! The amount of air going thru' the Hot-Swap boxes was also very poor. The Server case has 4 internal fans. Even on full blast [very noisy] they didn't provide much cooling of the HDDs. Discarded the H-S boxes, put thin rubber and very small aluminum packing in each of the HDD bays and external fans. It is ok now. But overall I prefer the HP dl380 with it's own 5v and 12v power and expander. It can be difficult to re-pin but you can buy 12 bay, good examples, for $US50.

 

[FlyingTexan]

My transferring to a 24 bay Server Case from a Standard HPZ440 was bad. Fitting the MB etc was no problem, but the continuing problems with the Hot-Swap HDD cases and the power supply was deficient in the 5v was annoying. A very standard ATX ps will only power say 20 HDDs b'cos of the 5v. Using 2 ps overcame this problem. But the Hot-Swap was/is very problematic. Not fitting securely, not lining-up, dropping out, bent pins! The amount of air going thru' the Hot-Swap boxes was also very poor. The Server case has 4 internal fans. Even on full blast [very noisy] they didn't provide much cooling of the HDDs. Discarded the H-S boxes, put thin rubber and very small aluminum packing in each of the HDD bays and external fans. It is ok now. But overall I prefer the HP dl380 with it's own 5v and 12v power and expander. It can be difficult to re-pin but you can buy 12 bay, good examples, for $US50.View attachment 27162

Kudos to you! When you said 3D printed you already were out of my neighborhood. I went ahead and ordered a 3rd. So hoping to have about 24 drives powered by one PSU. It's going to be a project but based on the info in this thread shouldn't be too crazy to put together. This is my last salvo for a very long time. After this it's just replacing drives as they die but this is all the room I could ever want or need. Going to be doing some testing this next week once all the parts are in then planning on switching it all over.

PS. Austrailian temps would be welcomed here where I'm at in Texas

 

[bluemoon21]

Yes I saw it snowing in Texas! It was 38c here last week. February normally the hottest, say 36 to 42c. But today a mild 26c and similar forecast for the week.

 

[audiophonicz]

So hoping to have about 24 drives powered by one PSU.

You prolly wont have an issue with a PSU that size, when I have all 12 slots populated with some very power hungry SAS drives, it wants about 125watts during power on when all 12 spin up at the same time. If you use SATA drives or can get staggered spin up youll be more than fine with that.

That said... single point of failure for multiple shelves is no bueno.

Good luck and update with pics

 

[bluemoon21]

BTW; Powering 12 slots is relatively easy, as you say for SATA. I can only power 24 from 1 PSU by using the HP dl380, b'coz of the integrated 5v/12v on the backplane. But staggered starts do help. In 40 drives, I have a few SAS drives and they are always the last to start, one by one.

 

[FlyingTexan]

This might be a dumb question but when going from the PSU to the backplane does it matter if I do 6-8pin or 8-8pin? I'd assume you'd want 8-8pin. 750W Gold Power Supply | Fully Modular this is my psu. I really like it, made by seasonic. Today my voltmeter and molex tool came in to remove pins. I've read that 8pin outlets can output 150 watts so with 8 drives in a bracket seems like that would be the way to go.

 

[bluemoon21]

There are 2 x 8 pin connectors. But you only need 3 X 12v and 3 X Ground for each. Forget what # 1, 3, pins are for; possibly just for indications, Think you can leave #1 and #3 empty.
You can power them with only 12v and Ground. Yellow is 12v and Grey is Ground.
Remember now, that I didn't repin those. Sorry. Found it very difficult even with a new [Amazon] tool. So I cut the wires and joined them together.
Also. You can run a single data cable from your HBA to port 1 on the first backplane. One is enough for most things.
No questions are dumb. It's how we learn things.

 

[FlyingTexan]

There are 2 x 8 pin connectors. But you only need 3 X 12v and 3 X Ground for each. Forget what # 1, 3, pins are for; possibly just for indications, Think you can leave #1 and #3 empty.
You can power them with only 12v and Ground. Yellow is 12v and Grey is Ground.
Remember now, that I didn't repin those. Sorry. Found it very difficult even with a new [Amazon] tool. So I cut the wires and joined them together.
Also. You can run a single data cable from your HBA to port 1 on the first backplane. One is enough for most things.
No questions are dumb. It's how we learn things.
View attachment 27192

Ok so I just ordered two of these on ebay. So that would be my 24 drive capacity (I'll have 19 or 20 for now because I may have one trying to die on me). I've also ordered a LSI 9300 16i which has four cables. So if I'm not mistaken I can run all 24 drives off the LSI 9300, correct? My reasoning is that it would let me free up a 16x PCIe slot. I'm wanting to add an intel arc GPU so that would give me one 16x gpu then the other for the LSI 9300. I know there will be stepdown from 16x to 8x-8x which is still very good. I bought a molex pin tool but like you I'm more of a splice and dice guy because I don't want anything to fall apart. This "Should" be everything I need? I'm excited to A) Get these things in and B) Not having to buy more things.

 

[FlyingTexan]

BTW; Powering 12 slots is relatively easy, as you say for SATA. I can only power 24 from 1 PSU by using the HP dl380, b'coz of the integrated 5v/12v on the backplane. But staggered starts do help. In 40 drives, I have a few SAS drives and they are always the last to start, one by one.

Can you explain this to a 5yr old brain? What does the 5v/12v on the backplane have to do with it? Do you mean the max amperage that they pull exceeds the 12v amperage? I didn't think 5v was used at all? I'm on unraid and unsure if I can do staggered starts. New realm for me. If this is simply about getting more PSU then I'm willing to bite the bullet and get something more quality. I just liked the 1psu option because it's less noise and seems it would be much better at power management. Wouldn't two psu pull a lot more power? I have a second 750psu in my garage storage that's a corsair RM750x. To me that just means I have two points for failure instead of one. I've honestly never had a PSU go dead on me and this server is obviously a home build that I'm using for plex. I don't mind running everything off one PSU. I also don't mind stepping up to something of more power if I need to. But if I don't then I don't want to.

 

[FlyingTexan]

On another note... If powering the backplane from the PSU there's no reason to power the buttons on the dl380e is there?

 

[FlyingTexan]

I wanted to bump this because I’m getting eager lol but also because I wanted to ask if the backplane here will automatically provide 3.3v to the drives that need it to function like the newer Ultrastars.

 

[Sean Ho]

SATA PWDIS means that you don't want 3.3v to the drives, or they'll perpetually be in reset state. Unlikely that the backplane provides it.

 

[bigfellasdad]

nice thread guys

ive got a g9 dl380 in the shed housing spiders and im sure ive got a few spare HP disk enclosures for it and and also for an ml150 with a spare 8x2.5 cage. Also got some sas ssd's..... id probably kill myself doing this though

 

[FlyingTexan]

Stupid question but do I need to use all 12v and grnds? Or can I just splice the 3x12v and grounds together so it's basically two wires?

 

[FlyingTexan]

A quick update. I resigned myself to the fact that you can't daisy chain these backplanes. Some backplanes do support this, so if you need daisy chaining then you'll want to look elsewhere. From what I can gather, a backplane will usually have a dual expander if it supports daisy chaining, so look out for the dual heatsinks.

Instead I've gone the route of expanding my HBA. I've got a quad port LSI 9200-16e in a consumer desktop PC, and I've also bought an Intel RES2SV240 expander which is really great - it's got 6 internal ports (so 24 effective SAS2 ports) and can be powered either in a PCIe slot or by a molex connection, so you can put it anywhere pretty much. Those two together cost me about $100 and give me 8 usable ports, so I can power 8 of these backplanes (you only need to use one SAS port on each backplane if you don't need the extra bandwidth).

Got a few cages mounted now to a DIY rack (put together from used IKEA LACK tables):

View attachment 23027

Behind the cages, I'm using a desktop fan (I think it's about 9" blades), with the fan cage removed, and the drives are staying between 30C and 50C depending on load. I have no way of reading the temperature of the expander heatsinks but they feel very cool. I guess this is expected with the airflow coming from behind - expanders nice and cool, drives not quite so cool.

Once my rack is complete I'll post another update.

So i'm at the point basically. I've modded my power connectors to my new corsair PSU and it didn't blow up. What I'm worried about is the cooling of the drives. By measuring it looks like they could take an 80mm fan each. That'd be 8 fans, which is fine, but I'm a little curious how your getting any sort of flow with the drives and fans NOT in the same sealed case together. My only other option is to add fans to the front of the drives and power them that way.

 

[FlyingTexan]

The wiring on the backplane is pretty thin 20awg wiring. Can the backplane and drives be powered off a single 8 pin PSU cable? Does this backplane automatically stagger the spin up?

 

[FlyingTexan]

Wanted to give an update.

1) Got it all working!
2) Not all HP DL 380e have their own controller (I'm a noob so didn't know)
3) I have one 8pin to each disk shelf. No issues at all.
4) My unraid server has gotten much faster with the backplanes and I don't know why
5) My drive temps doing a 3 day parity rebuild of 14TB drives are high. I'm seeing 52c on these. Trying to figure out better cooling options. Wanted to post photos but keep getting told the file sizes are too large.