Need help to decide on budget storage expansion

[BoredSysadmin]

Hello. My current home NAS situation consists of a single sata 6x 2TB drives freenas box using onboard SATA controller. it has unused pci-e 16 (full speed) slot. the board is gigabyte H77 so it's pci-e gen3.
there are few other pci-e slots, x1 is used for nic.

Now I've recently got my hands on a bunch (8 at home, 8 more to come) of used WD RE4 2tb drives.
I know these aren't new and some (1-2) already dead I expect few more to follow suit.

What I am looking for the cheapest possible way to add these drives to some form of NAS. Likely external enclosure for existing freenas is likely candidate. performance isn't the point. As long as I get around 120MBps reads/writes (just enough to saturate 1gig) it should be enough.
In terms of redundancy - Z2/ or raid6 should do the trick.

Stuff I have lying around: few old ATX pc cases, PSUs, various memory dimms.

Ideas?

p.s: My friend suggested going with much more simple setup: buy 2x new 10tb drives (approx $180 each) and just do raid 1 in cheap nas box.

 

[Evan]

2 x 10-14tb raid1 is what I would do, keep it simple. Or else a raid with 4 x 8tb could be another option. Also reduce power consumption reducing the number of drives.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

2 x 10-14tb raid1 is what I would do, keep it simple. Or else a raid with 4 x 8tb could be another option. Also reduce power consumption reducing the number of drives.

Thanks, but I'm looking for a bit more specific and creative ways to add the drives to some sort of Enclosure/controller. I should've mentioned that the current FreeNAS box doesn't have any more internal space to place the drive into.

10x 2tb was also among the lines. One idea is Asustor as6210T nas, but it's not cheap and the cpu is quite ancient

 

[gregsachs]

Cheapest possible solution, given old cases, is what I like to call "ghetto" jbod.
Note that I am not using freenas, so the HBA part is just based on a search for freenas...
1: Buy a cheap freenas HBA with external sas ports, 2 or 4. Looks like about $50 for an 8 lane card.
LSI 9200-8e 6Gbps 8-lane external SAS HBA P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID NoROM | eBay
2: Buy sff-8088-sff-8087 bulkhead connector: Two Ports Mini SAS SFF-8088 To SAS 36Pin SFF-8087 PCBA Female Adapter With PCI | eBay $25
3: Buy a couple sff-8087 to sata FORWARD breakout cables, length TBD. $25
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...-8087+forward&qid=1551546426&s=gateway&sr=8-3
4: Jumper ATX power supply green wire to black wire. Paper clip plus electrical tape works, or use a short piece of wire. This makes it always on.
5: Assemble and go.
Without an expander, each cable supports 4 drives. If you ever need more than 8 drives,
add a SAS expander to the external box, and you can add more drives inside it or daisy chain.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Cheapest possible solution, given old cases, is what I like to call "ghetto" jbod.
Note that I am not using freenas, so the HBA part is just based on a search for freenas...
1: Buy a cheap freenas HBA with external sas ports, 2 or 4. Looks like about $50 for an 8 lane card.
LSI 9200-8e 6Gbps 8-lane external SAS HBA P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID NoROM | eBay
2: Buy sff-8088-sff-8087 bulkhead connector: Two Ports Mini SAS SFF-8088 To SAS 36Pin SFF-8087 PCBA Female Adapter With PCI | eBay $25
3: Buy a couple sff-8087 to sata FORWARD breakout cables, length TBD. $25
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...-8087+forward&qid=1551546426&s=gateway&sr=8-3
4: Jumper ATX power supply green wire to black wire. Paper clip plus electrical tape works, or use a short piece of wire. This makes it always on.
5: Assemble and go.
Without an expander, each cable supports 4 drives. If you ever need more than 8 drives,
add a SAS expander to the external box, and you can add more drives inside it or daisy chain.

I assume this hba would work? :
HP 617824-001 615242-001 LSI SAS9200-8e 6Gb/s PCIe x8 SAS/SATA High Profile HBA | eBay
b) I think you missed a pair of 8088 mini SAS external cables, like these:
Lot of 2 Tyco EMC 038-003-787 Cable Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 2M 787421257069 | eBay

 

[gregsachs]

Yes, that adapter looks well recommended for freenas.
Yeah, I guess cables are important....
The other, slightly more elegant approach is to get one of the HP SAS expanders which have an external port, and use that instead of the bulkhead connector.
The HP will only run sata drives at 3gb/s, and I'm not sure if it handles > 2tb drives. (99% sure it does, just check google-I can't remember if I had larger drives connected when I used one; i replaced with an intel one).
However, to run the HP you either need to power up a motherboard or use a mining PCI slot to feed it power.
I personally built a ghetto jbod exactly like this before moving to a xyratex shelf.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Yes, that adapter looks well recommended for freenas.
Yeah, I guess cables are important....
The other, slightly more elegant approach is to get one of the HP SAS expanders which have an external port, and use that instead of the bulkhead connector.
The HP will only run sata drives at 3gb/s, and I'm not sure if it handles > 2tb drives. (99% sure it does, just check google-I can't remember if I had larger drives connected when I used one; i replaced with an intel one).
However, to run the HP you either need to power up a motherboard or use a mining PCI slot to feed it power.
I personally built a ghetto jbod exactly like this before moving to a xyratex shelf.

hmm, I did add an exact same expander to my ebay card. Thanks for mentioning sas1 3g speed. I've missed it.
Yes, I rather not run motherboard just to get power to it, mining pci-e risers should be enough.
The HP SAS Expander does have an external port, but HP says it's meant to be used for a client device, not connected to a controller. I'm thinking 8088-8088 bridgeport is inevitable

Looking more on eBay, I've found 6g IBM 46M0997 Sas Expander for $26. small price to pay for up to 2x (potential) disk performance.
So far my total is about: $135, including Rosewill RSV-Cage.

For a second I've considered this controller instead but figured, but the time I'll fill this new 20tb raw/14-15 TB usable space, probably 20-30TB drives would be common and cheap


What the heck is xyratex ? Isn't it the company Seagate bough?
Holy crap. XYRATEX HB-1235 12-Bay SAS Disk Array w/ SATIT2 0995122-04 (x8) 4TB Caddy 8DC16 | eBay
$150 shipped and all else ya need is external cables and the controller... and MUCH fewer headaches.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Update:
I just won an $105 offer for this: Xyratex JBOD Expansion Array 12 x 3.5" 6Gb/s SAS Hard Drive Bay HB-1235 Dell HP | eBay
Add this and this and it's $175 total.
HP 617824-001 615242-001 LSI SAS9200-8e 6Gb/s PCIe x8 SAS/SATA High Profile HBA | eBay
Lot of 2 Tyco EMC 038-003-787 Cable Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 2M 787421257069 | eBay

fan Noise doesn't bother me. it will sit in the basement.

 

[gregsachs]

Update:
I just won an $105 offer for this: Xyratex JBOD Expansion Array 12 x 3.5" 6Gb/s SAS Hard Drive Bay HB-1235 Dell HP | eBay
Add this and this and it's $175 total.
HP 617824-001 615242-001 LSI SAS9200-8e 6Gb/s PCIe x8 SAS/SATA High Profile HBA | eBay
Lot of 2 Tyco EMC 038-003-787 Cable Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 2M 787421257069 | eBay

fan Noise doesn't bother me. it will sit in the basement.

I've got that exact unit, replaced my ghetto-jbod I have SAS drives in mine, my understanding is that for SATA drives you need an interposer or you will get an error. SATA drives will only be connected to the top module, I'd need to check which connection to plug into. (it isn't supposed to matter, but it seems to.
Back to prior discussion, the external port on the HP absolutely works as an input,
I ran ghetto JBOD with HP, then one of the Intel expanders, now xyratex.
Glad you didn't get the first one-the SATIT controller is actually a PC, and that won't work as a JBOD unless you swap the controller(s) out.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

From what I've read, it does support the SATA drives and the error buzz could be shut-off permanently if you hold the silencing button 15secs or so. The interposer for regular SATA drives would be needed since SAS drives are dual homed, and sata aren't.

edit: this is one more specific in details:
Dell Xyratex Compellent HB-1235 - Max drive size? : homelab

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Finally got around to hook it all up. Controller, cabling, and shelf went in without a hitch. No fiddling with a firmware/bios or drivers.
Was able to change shelf ID with a long press and then quick toggle of numbers till you reach desired. The same button used to shutdown beeping from lack of SAS drives. All drives show up (hot) in Freenas.
@gregsachs Huge thanks for letting me know about this option. It's crazy how cheap and easy this expansion project ended up

 

[gregsachs]

Finally got around to hook it all up. Controller, cabling, and shelf went in without a hitch. No fiddling with a firmware/bios or drivers.
Was able to change shelf ID with a long press and then quick toggle of numbers till you reach desired. The same button used to shutdown beeping from lack of SAS drives. All drives show up (hot) in Freenas.
@gregsachs Huge thanks for letting me know about this option. It's crazy how cheap and easy this expansion project ended up

Not a problem-and if/when you out grow it, the netapp ds2246 is dirt cheap too. 2u, 24x2.5" drives. 120TB raw with current drives in 2U

 

[BeTeP]

Holy crap. XYRATEX HB-1235 12-Bay SAS Disk Array w/ SATIT2 0995122-04 (x8) 4TB Caddy 8DC16 | eBay
$150 shipped and all else ya need is external cables and the controller... and MUCH fewer headaches.

Holy crap indeed.

Glad you didn't get the first one-the SATIT controller is actually a PC, and that won't work as a JBOD unless you swap the controller(s) out.

What is wrong with SATIT2 being a PC?!? A whole server in a SBB canister format - it's like the best thing ever.
That was an amazing deal - $150 shipped for the enclosure with all trays and TWO SATIT2 controllers. A single controller is still worth about $200 easy. Not all SATITs are equal though depending on what's installed in the PCIe slot. That particular one came with X540-T2. It's like free money.

 

[gregsachs]

Holy crap indeed.



What is wrong with SATIT2 being a PC?!? A whole server in a SBB canister format - it's like the best thing ever.
That was an amazing deal - $150 shipped for the enclosure with all trays and TWO SATIT2 controllers. A single controller is still worth about $200 easy. Not all SATITs are equal though depending on what's installed in the PCIe slot. That particular one came with X540-T2. It's like free money.

It has never been clear to me if one can load/use any OS on one of these. It is it possible? If so, obvious thing for a nas, right?

 

[BeTeP]

Works great. Not having a VGA out is kind of tricky though. BIOS setup is not a problem - it is redirected to a serial port. For the OS install I just pulled the SSD DOM, put it into another PC, installed OS (I think I used Ubuntu but I do not see why anything else wouldn't work as well) and put it back - done.

The best part - you only need one per NAS. So if you get a deal on an enclosure with 2 controllers - you could build 2 systems. Just add another SBB enclosure. DS4243 would work just fine.

 

[gregsachs]

Works great. Not having a VGA out is kind of tricky though. BIOS setup is not a problem - it is redirected to a serial port. For the OS install I just pulled the SSD DOM, put it into another PC, installed OS (I think I used Ubuntu but I do not see why anything else wouldn't work as well) and put it back - done.

The best part - you only need one per NAS. So if you get a deal on an enclosure with 2 controllers - you could build 2 systems. Just add another SBB enclosure. DS4243 would work just fine.

That would be a cool writeup, i googled a bunch trying to see if anyone had ever done this, and never found anything. Looks like single 2011 socket, dual 10gbe, 4x DIMM slots, is it a 2208 sas controller?
I know the storsimple PSU units have batteries inside...

 

[BeTeP]

Actually there is very little to write up. It's pretty much a standard PC with ConnectX-3 with dual QSFP+ and SAS2308 onboard.

Also I do not want to drive the prices up too much. I might need to buy a couple more units soon

here is a picture of the motherboard

Spoiler

 

[gregsachs]

Actually there is very little to write up. It's pretty much a standard PC with ConnectX-3 with dual QSFP+ and SAS2308 onboard.

Also I do not want to drive the prices up too much. I might need to buy a couple more units soon

Will the cx-3 do 40gb or only 10gb? Still, that plus my favorite ds2246 with some ssds would a pretty robust nas...

 

[BeTeP]

I am still at 10GbE myself so I did not try. But I would be surprised if it wouldn't work at 40Gbps.

 

[ClaudAndrus]

Sorry for being edgy, but what about just an old PC as a storage?