eBay SuperMicro 2U: 12-disk, 2x L5630, $290

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watersb

New Member
Jun 11, 2016
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Older, but good value at $299 shipped. I have purchased from Garland Computers before and had a good experience.

Supermicro 2U Server X8DTN+ 2x Xeon L5630 2.13ghz QC / 32gb / HW Raid / Add HD

12 HDD-Bay 2U Server
LSI MR SAS 8708EM2 Raid Controller

SAS826A Backplane is partitioned (3x 4 bays). The 8708EM2 will
only allow 8 of 12 bays to be recognized in Raid 0/1/5/6/10

X8DTN+ Motherboard
2x Intel Xeon L5630 2.13ghz 5.86 GT/s 12m Cache Quad Core CPUs
8x 4gb DDR3 ECC Reg Memory
LSI MR SAS 8708EM2 Raid Controller
Add Your Own 3.5″ SATA Hard Drives
SIMLP-3+ IPMI Remote Access Card
2x 800w Power Supplies

No Rails Included
No Operating System Installed

30 Day Warranty
 
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Rain

Active Member
May 13, 2013
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That backplane - is it SAS2 ?
It is the BPN-SAS826A backplane. The A denotes that there is no expander; simply 3x SFF8087. If you have a SAS2 controller, it will communicate with the drives at SAS2 / SATA III speeds without issue. Pretty sure SAS3 will work as well!

Do note that, unlike the expander backplanes, you cannot simply use just one SFF8087 cable, you have to use all of them if you populate all the drive bays.
 

nev_neo

Active Member
Jul 31, 2013
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Thanks for the info Rain.
I suppose this would mean needing to used 2 m1015's to enable all 12 bays - correct ?
Would it be possible to just plug into the motherboard ?
I'm looking for a 12-bay server for freenas testing. I'd also like to use SSD's, so having SAS2/SATA 3 connectivity would be great.
 

manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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I'd suggest multiple HBA's such as the M1015 but there's nothing stopping you from using the built in SATA connectors.
I have the 16 bay version of this and have 14 of the bays controlled via 2x Dell H200 with two ports unplugged and, instead, plugged into SATA on the motherboard. Did this as OmniOS doesn't like booting off of the HBA but has no issue with the onboard SATA.
 
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Rain

Active Member
May 13, 2013
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Thanks for the info Rain.
I suppose this would mean needing to used 2 m1015's to enable all 12 bays - correct ?
Would it be possible to just plug into the motherboard ?
I'm looking for a 12-bay server for freenas testing. I'd also like to use SSD's, so having SAS2/SATA 3 connectivity would be great.
Either way works, just as @manxam pointed out. Two M1015s would work fine, or just one M1015 and a SFF8087 reverse breakout cable from the backplane to four SAS/SATA ports on the motherboard. A forward SFF8087 breakout cable will not work, despite seemingly being exactly the same.
 
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manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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Because I was curious myself as to WHY one needed "forward" vs "reverse" breakout cables I did a little research:

Forward Breakout (think ethernet crossover cable) :
Host/controller:
Transmit pair on pins 2 & 3
Receive pair on pins 5 & 6
Disk:
Receive pair on pins 2 & 3
Transmit pair on pins 5 & 6

Reverse Breakout (1:1):
1:1 pin mapping between each 4x SATA connector and the 1x SAS connector
 

frogtech

Well-Known Member
Jan 4, 2016
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A = sff8087 connectors, 1 per 4 drives, TQ is standard sata data cable connectors, breakout cables are necessary here.
 

mattr

Member
Aug 1, 2013
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A = sff8087 connectors, 1 per 4 drives, TQ is standard sata data cable connectors, breakout cables are necessary here.

Ahh thanks... I was going back and forth between the manuals and couldn't figure out the difference. Can't believe I missed that.