Free BackBlaze Storage Pods?!

Wow, these sounds like a good way to even power a system on the cheap. Enterprise class power for $14--yes please.

 

so are the hard drive backplanes have the expander chips on them and if so , do they support SAS 6Gb or SAS 12Gb or they just SATA compatible?

the rack rails setup for square hole racks or round hole?

 

From what I've read about these, they would be just sata since the drives being installed in them are mostly consumer sata drives.

 

It is not clear which backplanes you are asking about. The thread was about Backblaze pods originally and then @kapone hijacked it to talk about his project. But in either case you will find the answers on the 1st page of the thread -
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/free-backblaze-storage-pods.24770/#post-230049
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/free-backblaze-storage-pods.24770/#post-232039

 

Sowwy...

 

I appologize for not being more clear. was asking about the backblaze storage pod backplanes. i JUST found the manuals for the backplane but wasnt clear if the expander chips did SAS or just SATA.

 

It's SATA port multiplier - it only does SATA. You can tell by 1-to-5 port ratio. SAS extenders are usually 1-to-multiples of 4.

 

Thank you for the info. My FreeNAS server (Dell r510) has 12 SAS drives 3.5" and 2 x 1Tb 2.5" SSD's in it and was looking to move to something i can grow into as im MAXED out right now.

 

Does anyone know of parts to replace the backplanes that come in either the 2.0 or 3.0 pods to something newer that fits properly in these cases? Preferably supporting SAS and obviously large sized hard drives? I have an LSI 9305 card as well so it would be nice if it was compatible with that but I could always get a new HBA if I had to. This is my first time ever being introduced to backplanes so not really sure what I am doing when looking for one. I did see that the chipset the current ones use was already end of life

edit: I found that apparently the new ones use a Marvel chipset and are from a company called Sunrich with model S-331. However the Sunrich website lists no such model, and BackBlaze says Arrow is a distributor for these but the Arrow sites list the backplanes but dont seem to sell them any longer:
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/s-331/sunrich-technology-us-inc
https://www.verical.com/pd/sunrich-technology--computer-backplanes-s-331-2040614

So still out of luck on these parts. Anyone know of other compatible backplanes that fit here that are able to be bought?

edit again: or if Backplanes cannot be had for these, does anyone know if someone sells a premade part for direct wiring the drives like the 4.0 pod used? This would be a fine route too but I wouldnt want to/be able to make these parts myself to drop into the chassis

 

I read all about the storage pods and their versions over the weekend--very cool stuff.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the newer models' backplanes. I'd check out the companies they recommend at the end if you want a ready-made pod as I bet they carry spare parts for their customers:
The Hardware Inside B2 Cloud Storage – Storage Pod 5.0