Questions About Old Supermicro 24 or 36 Bay Servers from Ebay

[Kneelbeforezod]

I was looking at the used SM 24 bay server chassis onEbay - the one from MrRackables but item description says it may not support 3 or 4tb drives if fully populated. I called SM and they said the Backplane only supports SAS 1 and that depending on the exact age of this model the backplane may switchable to a newer SAS 2 or later backplane because they went from using screws only to a combo of screws and clips or hooks to secure the newer backplanes. It seems most if not allof the SM boxes have SAS 1 backplanes.

Can anyone confirm or deny if the backplane can be changed on 4U Supermicro Superchassis SC846E1-R900B 24 Bay

Also how noisy are these - i've seen some reports the PSUs are very noisy as are the fans in these 4Us? This would be for home use and i'd want to populate with 8TB drives either HGSTs or Reds.

 

[ttabbal]

I'm not sure about swapping backplanes. You might consider looking for a TQ backplane chassis, as there is no expander on the backplane, compatibility isn't an issue. The tradeoff is you need more HBAs or your own expander and lots of cabling. My 24 bay is a TQ and it's not bad for a home user.

They are loud. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time in the same room with it. I put mine in a utility room, so the noise is not an issue for me. Some people have had luck swapping the fans for quieter units.

I don't know where the "if fully populated" bit comes from. As I understand it, SAS1 chipsets simply don't support >2.2TB. Even with SAS1, that's a decent price.

 

[StammesOpfer]

Yes you can swap the backplane. It is not difficult either but you have to find one to purchase. I have heard many people discuss having working drives greater than 2tb however you just have to know that it is not an approved/guaranteed solution. If you go the 36-bay route I have a SAS2 expander for the rear 12 bays for sale.

 

[Kneelbeforezod]

Yes you can swap the backplane. It is not difficult either but you have to find one to purchase. I have heard many people discuss having working drives greater than 2tb however you just have to know that it is not an approved/guaranteed solution. If you go the 36-bay route I have a SAS2 expander for the rear 12 bays for sale.

Is the rear backplane physically different from the front drives backplane - could this backplane be used in a 24 bay to handle all 24 for example?

 

[StammesOpfer]

Yes. Rear is 2u and front is 4u. The back is split into 2 levels bottoms half for drive top half for motherboard and power supplies.

 

[Rain]

Poke around and ask some of the sellers with complete systems listed what backplane the system has and if they'd part it out and sell just the chassis. Don't expect a crazy deal, but I'm sure someone will be willing to work with you. You'll end up spending more money on a SAS1-equipped chassis and a SAS2 backplane to swap in (unless you get a really good deal on either the chassis or the backplane; good luck)

You might consider looking for a TQ backplane chassis, as there is no expander on the backplane, compatibility isn't an issue.

If you want to avoid the expander backplanes, the "A" backplanes (ie: BPN-SAS-846A) are much more desireable IMO. 6 SFF8087 cables instead of a zillion individual SAS/SATA connections.

They are loud. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time in the same room with it. I put mine in a utility room, so the noise is not an issue for me. Some people have had luck swapping the fans for quieter units.

If you have an older one with 3 pin fans, yes. The "newer" models came with 4 pin PWM fans which you can spin down with any PWM capable motherboard.