Pallet Sale 10xSC846's

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CyberSkulls

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Apr 14, 2016
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Those would be good candidates for stripping them down and selling for parts. I've done that with my older 846 chassis. It was a shame to scrap them but I got $320/EA worth of parts out of mine and sold the parts on eBay.


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CyberSkulls

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Apr 14, 2016
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Are you sure? Mine is hooked up to 17 2,3,4 and 6TB drives running off a LSI 2008.
This is actually quite common. It seems to be random that some users can fill the bay's completely up with drives >2TB and it works just fine. I honestly think it comes down to firmware on the backplane.
 

Awesomesauce

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Apr 20, 2016
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This is actually quite common. It seems to be random that some users can fill the bay's completely up with drives >2TB and it works just fine. I honestly think it comes down to firmware on the backplane.

No its not. The backplane version in this chassis does not work with 3tb +

The chassis however has other backplane versions.

So unless you can confirm your backplane version, i will not assume it would work. Call supermicro to see for yourself.
 

roberth58

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Nov 5, 2014
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No its not. The backplane version in this chassis does not work with 3tb +

The chassis however has other backplane versions.

So unless you can confirm your backplane version, i will not assume it would work. Call supermicro to see for yourself.
I have a 846 from the TAMS deal a few years ago. It came with a SAS-846TQ. Last year I bought a BPN-SAS-846EL1 from MrRackables to replace it, trying to reduce my power usage. This backplane has been running 17 SATA drives sized between 2 and 6TB 24/7 for over 6 months. The 846 in the ad from MrRackables is listed as having a BPN-SAS-846EL1. The only problem with the SAS-846El1 is that it only runs SAS at 6Gig, SATA is only 3Gig. If you need SATA at 6Gig buy the SAS2-846El1. Now I am not going to say that it will still work with all 24 bays populated, but you definitely can't say it won't work with 3TB+ drives. Also if you are using a card like a LSI 1068E instead of a LSI 2008 or equivalent, then you are correct it will not work with 3TB+ drives.
 

Awesomesauce

Member
Apr 20, 2016
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Strange i had exactly same card with 2 of these chassis. None work with 3tb drives. Which OS are you running?

I remembered i tried everything, also call Supermicro. They told me SAS1 wont work. So i had to upgrade the backplanes to SAS2 and Sas 846A (no expander )
 

CyberSkulls

Active Member
Apr 14, 2016
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No its not. The backplane version in this chassis does not work with 3tb +

The chassis however has other backplane versions.

So unless you can confirm your backplane version, i will not assume it would work. Call supermicro to see for yourself.
I have those same backplanes, so yes I "can" confirm it will work with 3TB drives as I have used mine with 3TB drives. So no need to write SM about it.

And I even bought them from Mr Rackables. Never tried to fill up all 24 bays as I doubt it would work completely full.
 

TuxDude

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2011
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The only problem with the SAS-846El1 is that it only runs SAS at 6Gig, SATA is only 3Gig.
The SAS-846EL1 backplane uses the LSI SASX36 expander chip which is only a first-gen SAS device - so you are only going to get 3G speeds regardless of whether you use SAS or SATA drives with it. But there are no limitations in first-gen SAS preventing >2TB drives - larger drives may work depending on a lot of other factors (eg. controller, firmwares, drivers, etc.)
 
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roberth58

New Member
Nov 5, 2014
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The SAS-846EL1 backplane uses the LSI SASX36 expander chip which is only a first-gen SAS device - so you are only going to get 3G speeds regardless of whether you use SAS or SATA drives with it. But there are no limitations in first-gen SAS preventing >2TB drives - larger drives may work depending on a lot of other factors (eg. controller, firmwares, drivers, etc.)
You are correct, I was getting the 846 specs mixed up with the hp expander I had in another system, it was SAS 6G and SATA 3G.
 

TuxDude

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2011
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You are correct, I was getting the 846 specs mixed up with the hp expander I had in another system, it was SAS 6G and SATA 3G.
Ya - the HP expanders are the only ones I've ever heard of that run SAS and SATA at different speeds.