EMC KTN-STL3 15 bay chassis

[EugenPrusi]

If you want to know more about ZFS and how it works meaning nuts and bolts Ars Technica wrote an article about three years ago that was quite good. I will link it here. Understanding ZFS emedia.am That is a Big Gulp of information but to keep it simple for starters is you can simply use TrueNAS Scale if you also want to run containers and virtual machines aswell. Basically appliance software on your NAS. Far as getting started you can purchase something from IX systems or build something of your own. One of the most simple ways to me is just purchasing a older Dell Poweredge. Something like the R730 or R730XD with V4 processors like 2650 V4 which are 90watt 10 cores and a HBA330 controller inside of it. You can keep it simple and just use a old machine of yours and put some drives in it. You can use something like labgopher to find older Poweredge deals. It gathers all the ebay data and presents it in a way you can filter out what you want. Just some ideas. I personally just use a Poweredge. keeps it simple.

Hi, you are right. Thanks for the recommendation! I will definitely read the article about ZFS on Ars Technica. I'll also look into using TrueNAS Scale for the setup. Thanks for the tips!

 

[AlistairM]

SATA vs SAS - Other people on here have mentioned that SATA drives can be used, provided they are plugged into the 'bottom controller'. What is the 'bottom controller' please? In my head, I'm imagining that this means that you must use the bottom two of the four ports when connecting the JBOD.

 

[bonox]

Background: There's an A controller and a B controller. I think they're labelled as such by arrows on the left side of the picture you posted in the middle of the box.

Each controller is connected to one of the two signal paths to a SAS HDD. SATA has only one path, so will be connected only to one controller, or will have an interposer capable of making two paths appear as one to the disk. There are separate part numbers for SAS and SATA interposers, so there may be a point of difference there specifically for SATA disks. Why are there two SAS ports per controller card? One's an uplink to the HBA, the other a downlink to another downstream 'daisy chained' shelf.

TLDR; if the drive doesn't show up, connect to the other controller card instead.

 

[BrassFox]

If you want to know more about ZFS and how it works meaning nuts and bolts Ars Technica wrote an article about three years ago that was quite good. I will link it here. Understanding ZFS storage. That is a Big Gulp of information but to keep it simple for starters is you can simply use TrueNAS Scale if you also want to run containers and virtual machines aswell. Basically appliance software on your NAS. Far as getting started you can purchase something from IX systems or build something of your own. One of the most simple ways to me is just purchasing a older Dell Poweredge. Something like the R730 or R730XD with V4 processors like 2650 V4 which are 90watt 10 cores and a HBA330 controller inside of it. You can keep it simple and just use a old machine of yours and put some drives in it. You can use something like labgopher to find older Poweredge deals. It gathers all the ebay data and presents it in a way you can filter out what you want. Just some ideas. I personally just use a Poweredge. keeps it simple.

This is very helpful. Thank you.