Multi-bay SAS setup

[Service Line]

We have 4 Seagate SAS drives ST6000NM0034. We would like to mount them in an external enclosure that will house at least four of them and if not too much more expensive a couple of extra bays for future expansion. We know we need an adapter for the computer and cables. Any recommendations for the gear - enclosure, adapter, cables? This is not going to be a production server - it will strictly be used for labs and testing scenarios - so does not have to be top of the line.

Also would like to have recommendations of what we would need to be able to connect them to SATA ports - so SATA to SAS convertor/connector/cable.


Any feedback is appreciated in advance.

 

[pricklypunter]

If it doesn't need to be pretty to look at, I would probably pick up a couple of Chenbro 4 disk cages from the 'bay. Just need a reverse 8087 breakout cable to each cage, giving you up to 8 x SATA ports to play with. Alternatively, toss in a cheap LSI 2008 based card, like a Dell H200/ 310, flashed to IT mode into your computer and route a couple of 8087 cables out through an unused expansion slot to the external cages. Obviously you'll need to MacGyver an external power supply to run them, but that's easily doable

 

[Goose]

If it doesn't need to be pretty to look at, I would probably pick up a couple of Chenbro 4 disk cages from the 'bay. Just need a reverse 8087 breakout cable to each cage, giving you up to 8 x SATA ports to play with. Alternatively, toss in a cheap LSI 2008 based card, like a Dell H200/ 310, flashed to IT mode into your computer and route a couple of 8087 cables out through an unused expansion slot to the external cages. Obviously you'll need to MacGyver an external power supply to run them, but that's easily doable

I've done something similar to this: X3650 M3 with a LSI HBA with SFF-8087 cables x2 out of the adjacent slot to a chenbro RM4116? with its own P/S and a SAS expander to 16x disks. Fun times. Only issues were when I needed to get inside the cxhenbro which was directly underneath.

Note - The 2x cables were by design to provide some cable loosening fault tolerance vs a speed bump of 8x channels.