So I'm putting together a ryzen 9 3900x in a supermicro enclosure 836 with a BPN-SAS3-836EL1 backplane and had a question. I'm using the ASUS Pro-WS-X570-ACE motherboard which has a built in U2 connector. I have two questions. If I buy a SFF-8643 to SFF-8087 cable, will the motherboard connect properly to the backplane? In the BIOS, there are 2 settings for the U2 connector, PCIE or SATA. If it could indeed work, what would I set the bios setting to?
Ryzen 9 Build in Supermicro enclosure backplane question
- Thread starter berserker99
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It looks like the BPN-SAS3-836EL1 is a SAS only backplane. As such you will need to connect it to a SAS card/port. It doesn't look like that motherboard has any SAS ability so you will need an add in card. There's plenty of recommendations for SAS cards elsewhere on the board
I've currently got sata HDDs (12 WD reds) running connected to an LSI 9207-8i. I was hoping I could skip the HBA and just connect the backplane to the motherboard via U2 connector.
From what I can tell, not in this case. The backplane doesn't have (from what I see) any controller capability of it's own, it looks to be just an expander intended to be connected to a SAS controller. I don't know if any backplanes have an integrated controller, so as far as I am aware the ones that DO connect via PCIe lanes are for using NVMe drives
Ok, I was afraid of that. There is a setting for the U.2 to run in sata mode. That would probably use the boards built in sata controller. I'll have to try it when the cable comes in. Thanks for your help.
That backplane, like all SAS backplanes, works fine with SATA devices. SATA is a subset of SAS. However, it's an expander backplane, and I don't think any SATA controller can deal with that. My guess is that it would either not work at all, or would only provide access to four drives, corresponding to the port you plugged into on the backplane.
A MegaRAID 9361-4i card would allow you to access all drives on the backplane and give you hardware RAID. You can get one for $180-200 or so.
A MegaRAID 9361-4i card would allow you to access all drives on the backplane and give you hardware RAID. You can get one for $180-200 or so.
OP already has a SAS controller and simply wishes not to use it. Also there are far far cheaper options on ebay
