LSI 9300-16i $129 obo

[nabsltd]

Sounds like this just makes more sense to do vs my idea. I guess I figured I could save a PCIe slot. Something like the LSI 9206-16e or LSI 9300-8E?

Unless you have (as in "right now") more than one external JBOD filled with disks, a -16e is a waste of money. Based on what you have on hand, you'd use your 4U server plus a 4U JBOD, for 48 total bays. Even at 6TB/bay, that's 288TB raw. You should put your money into another server before you think about a 2nd JBOD. If the JBOD uses a dual-port backplane, you could even build an HA server pair sharing the JBOD.

I have 96 bays right now, with 2x storage nodes, 3x compute, and 1x combo, with a total of 332TB raw installed (which averages to less than 4TB/bay...plenty of room for expansion). I've never even considered a JBOD, as the redundancy of another server is more useful, and the additional cost to make it a server isn't a big deal (about $300 gets you an X10SRL-F, any v4 CPU, 32GB of RAM, an 8i HBA, and a 10Gbit dual-port NIC).

 

[Koop]

Unless you have (as in "right now") more than one external JBOD filled with disks, a -16e is a waste of money.

I just have two extra long supermicro chassis I picked up and was just thinking of options with them. I made a topic about them here.

You're right though, instead of using something like the LSI 9300-16i I should focus on trying to use them as chassis for actual system(s).