FS: Supermicro BPN-SAS2-846EL1 Backplane with SAS Expander - Used

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mattlach

Active Member
Aug 1, 2014
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For sale is a Backplane (with metal bracket) I removed from my Supermicro SC846 chassis.

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The Backplane has an internal SAS expander and is designed to be connected to your SAS Raid Card (or HBA) with a single 4x SFF-8087 cable. (Can accept adapter cables for SFF-8643 controllers) It is SAS2 (6GB/s) which allows up to 24 SAS or SATA hard drives to share 6x4 or 24Gbit/s of bandwidth.

If you look closely it has three SAS connectors. One is the primary input from your SAS controller. One is for cascading with another Backplane. It is unclear to me what the third one is for, but it does not support dual SAS configurations for more than 24Gbit/s bandwidth.

The Backplane works perfectly. I'm only selling it because I wanted to switch to a direct attach version without an expander. (This is not for everyone as it will require SAS controllers with 6 connectors, 24 lanes)

$175 or best offer. Pickup locally in greater Boston, or I can ship via USPS to anywhere in the U.S.

Here is my heat, if anyone still uses that!
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
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eduncan911.com
The Backplane has an internal SAS expander and is designed to be connected to your SAS Raid Card (or HBA) with a single 4x SFF-8087 cable. (Can accept adapter cables for SFF-8643 controllers) It is SAS2 (6GB/s) which allows up to 24 SAS or SATA hard drives to share 6x4 or 24Gbit/s of bandwidth.

If you look closely it has three SAS connectors. One is the primary input from your SAS controller. One is for cascading with another Backplane. It is unclear to me what the third one is for, but it does not support dual SAS configurations for more than 24Gbit/s bandwidth.
Actually, you can connect two cables - from the same HBA - and get 48 Gb/s. It's just not documented by Supermicro. However, their support has confirmed it. It's a feature of the LSI expander controller itself.

You can also connect a 3rd cable, an SFF-8087 break-out cable, and get an additional 4x SAS/SATA connectors. Or, daisy chain to another chassis, etc over that 48 Gb/s bandwidth.


And, it doesn't matter which ports you connect it.
 
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