NetApp DS224C with SATA and SAS? Loud?

[mostlycorn]

I'm looking for a 24 bay SFF JBOD to pair with a Dell R740xd (using zfs, no hardware raid). I've got a couple 12Gbps SAS SSDs and several 6Gbps SATA SSDs. No spinning platters.

I have three questions.

1. SATA support - From what I've read, SATA SSDs will work in the DS224C as long as I have the interposer boards on them. Is that true? I found a cheap DS224C on eBay, but the seller made it clear that it's SAS only, said SATA won't work. Maybe the caddies it comes with just doesn't have the interposers? It has IOM12 controllers.

2. About how loud are the fans/PSUs in a DS224C? I'll only be using SSDs so I don't need to worry about the noise of hard drive. For reference, my Dell R740xd was way too loud with the high performance fans running at 35%. However, it's fine with some modified "standard" fans at 35%. Maybe I can mod or replace the DS224C fans to reduce the noise?

3. Other options? Any recommendations for a different 24 bay SFF JBOD that supports SAS-3 and SATA? Bonus points for one that's not super loud (long shot, I know).

Thanks!

 

[gregsachs]

In my playing with a ds2246, it works just fine with SATA drives if you are ok with them only being 'seen' by one controller. Normally each controller is connected to one of the SAS connectors, and without interposers the second controller won't see any drives, but the first one will work fine.

That said, I just sent back one of the 2 port Dell LSI 3008 12gbs HBA's because it wouldn't pass through any drives to the OS on either the ds2246 or a xyratex 1235 unt. I have one of the 4 port Adaptec based cards due today...
Regarding sound, i recently powered the xyratex back up after a while off, and it is definitely higher pitched and more audible than the r740 I have, which has the high performance fans due to Optane DCPMM-when I installed optane, it cranked the regular fans up to like 75%, but the HP fans run at 30%.

 

[mostlycorn]

In my playing with a ds2246, it works just fine with SATA drives if you are ok with them only being 'seen' by one controller. Normally each controller is connected to one of the SAS connectors, and without interposers the second controller won't see any drives, but the first one will work fine.

That said, I just sent back one of the 2 port Dell LSI 3008 12gbs HBA's because it wouldn't pass through any drives to the OS on either the ds2246 or a xyratex 1235 unt. I have one of the 4 port Adaptec based cards due today...
Regarding sound, i recently powered the xyratex back up after a while off, and it is definitely higher pitched and more audible than the r740 I have, which has the high performance fans due to Optane DCPMM-when I installed optane, it cranked the regular fans up to like 75%, but the HP fans run at 30%.

Thanks. I had read that the DS2246 works with SATA, but am hoping to get something that supports SAS-3 since I have a couple 12Gbps SSDs and would like to use the extra bandwidth.

Good to know about the 3008!

Got it. So xyratex is out for me then. My 740/xd high performance fans were too loud so I switched to the standard ones with a mod to trick the idrac into thinking they are high performance so they don't get pegged at 100%.

 

[gregsachs]

Just coming back to this with a correction-my xyratex was running on a single P/S, as one had a dead DC side. That made it substantially louder than normal. I just replaced the bad P/S and it is now back to not audible vs the R740.

 

[mostlycorn]

Just coming back to this with a correction-my xyratex was running on a single P/S, as one had a dead DC side. That made it substantially louder than normal. I just replaced the bad P/S and it is now back to not audible vs the R740.

Ah, cool, make sense! Mine arrived and the noise is tolerable.

However, I'm unable to get it to recognize any SATA SSDs. SAS SSDs show up and work just fine. I'm pretty sure my cabling and HBA are all in order. I've got active interposer boards. I also tried the cover-pin-3 (3.3v) thing, just in case. Nothing.

At this point I'm stumped.

Maybe I need to update my IOM12's firmware? It's currently running version 300. I read something about how older IOM12 firmware may not work with SATA, but that version 311 or later fixes it. I got my hands on version 311 and 412, but haven't been able to flash either using
sg_write_buffer. I suspect I might need to get my hands on an image of "ONTAP Select" to run under proxmox.

So far I haven't been able to find ONTAP Select.

If anyone has ideas or suggestions on how to get SATA drives working in this DS224C, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[gregsachs]

Ah, cool, make sense! Mine arrived and the noise is tolerable.

However, I'm unable to get it to recognize any SATA SSDs. SAS SSDs show up and work just fine. I'm pretty sure my cabling and HBA are all in order. I've got active interposer boards. I also tried the cover-pin-3 (3.3v) thing, just in case. Nothing.

At this point I'm stumped.

Maybe I need to update my IOM12's firmware? It's currently running version 300. I read something about how older IOM12 firmware may not work with SATA, but that version 311 or later fixes it. I got my hands on version 311 and 412, but haven't been able to flash either using
sg_write_buffer. I suspect I might need to get my hands on an image of "ONTAP Select" to run under proxmox.

So far I haven't been able to find ONTAP Select.

If anyone has ideas or suggestions on how to get SATA drives working in this DS224C, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Try the other IOM Slot-at least on my ds2246, sata drives work fine, but are only connected to a single IOM, regardless of interposer use. I can check which trays/interposers I have, but they definitely don't make SATA available to both controllers. My memory is that it is the left hand IOM as seen from the back that is connected to the "A" SAS/Sata connector.

 

[mostlycorn]

Try the other IOM Slot-at least on my ds2246, sata drives work fine, but are only connected to a single IOM, regardless of interposer use. I can check which trays/interposers I have, but they definitely don't make SATA available to both controllers. My memory is that it is the left hand IOM as seen from the back that is connected to the "A" SAS/Sata connector.

Thanks, keep the suggestions coming! Unfortunately, I’ve tried using the IOM12 in different slots. Still nothing.

I've tried a few more things and haven’t gotten any SATA disks to show up yet. Filling in more details here on what I’ve got and what I’ve tried...

Current situation

My DS224C has two PSUs and only one IOM12 installed. The IOM12 has four SFF-8644 ports.

My HBA is an Avago 9305-16e.

My trays have interposer boards. I believe these are active interposers. The tray part number is 111-00721+A0. AFAICT, it’s physically not possible to plug a disk in without an interposer because the interposer "laterally shifts" the power+data pins. Without it, the pins on a drive won’t line up.

I have verified that the DS224C and HBA work by using a SAS SSD.

My IOM12 firmware is version 412. It started off at 300. No luck. Upgraded to 311. Same result. Now I’m at 412.

Things I’ve tried

I’ve tried with the IOM12 in the A slot and the B slot. No change. I’ve tried connecting the HBA and shelf using various combinations of ports (the IOM12 has ports 1-4). No luck.

I’ve tried covering pins 1-3 on the SATA SSD.

I’ve tried a few different SATA SSDs (Samsung and Intel).

I’ve tried plugging the SATA SSDs into various slots (e.g. slot 0, 1, 22, and 23).

One observation is that in the output of,

sg_ses /dev/sg0 -a

I do see an indication that the shelf knows there’s something plugged in. When there’s an empty interposer the status shows "Not installed". When there’s a SAS disk, it’s "OK". When there’s a SATA, it’s "Noncritical". e.g.

[0,1]  Element type: Device slot
  Enclosure Status:
    Predicted failure=0, Disabled=0, Swap=0, status: Noncritical
    Slot address: 1
[ICODE]

 

[gregsachs]

Sorry, I got nothing at this point. My only theory would be if the interposer or IOM are blocking sata.

 

[mostlycorn]

I appreciate the ideas. Yeah, maybe there's a different kind of interposer I'd need. At this point it seems unlikely I'm going to get SATA disks to work in this shelf. Oh well. Guess I'll need to buy more SAS then