Supermicro 3u 16bay 3.5" chassis with SAS2 expander

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RXWatcher

New Member
Nov 29, 2014
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They're making it right by replacing the inner rails as well as sending me the 2 fans and air shroud. I'm pretty happy with that outcome.
 

Hank C

Active Member
Jun 16, 2014
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there are 6 sas connectors in the backplane. Which 1 or 2 is needed to connect all 16 drives?
 

awedio

Active Member
Feb 24, 2012
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IIRC, you can use any of them. There is no "input" & "output"
You can go from your HBA to either one of the 3.
There are 2 groups of 3 connectors (2 x 3 = 6)
 

markpower28

Active Member
Apr 9, 2013
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Question for power supply, on the manual it states has 1 x 8-pin motherboard cable, but mine has two. Can anyone confirm this works with motherboard that requires 2 x 8 pin cables? (which will be great!)
 

Cipher

Member
Aug 8, 2014
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Hi Guys,

I was thinking of getting one of these to store backups of my Blu-Ray collection (900+), probably on 5-6TB drives, so they can easily be accessed on my network. Given this, I have a few questions:

1) Can I disable one of the power supplies and still operate this server? The redundancy isn't as important to me as less noise and less power.
2) If I was to use this as a JBOD as you guys mentioned would all 16 drives be spinning if someone in my family was watching a movie off of one drive?
3) How exactly is this run in JBOD mode and connected to a network? I'm not familiar with these server components, like SAS2 backplanes etc so when you guys are mentioning running this without a MB I'm excited as that's one less component to buy and operate.
 

Aestr

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
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@Cipher

1) Yes this work just fine. You just pull out the one you don't want to use.
2) Depends on how you use the drives. If you run something like an array that uses striping then yes your reads will spin up all disks. If you're looking to store media maybe a snapshot RAID would work best for you (or no redundancy if you have other backups or don't value the data)
3) Unfortunately running as a JBOD will still mean buying extra in your case. A JBOD chassis connects to another computer using cables such as sff-8088 and that computer serves the files on the network. The JBOD itself is jsut used to power and house the disks. Assuming you already have a computer for that role you would need the sff-8088 cable, an HBA on your computer that has external ports and a adapter for the JBOD to convert between the internal sff-8087 and external sff-8088.
 
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Cipher

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Aug 8, 2014
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Thank you, Aestr.

1) That's great news!

2) I'd probably be looking at something like Windows Storage Spaces or ZFS on my main server and I'd like the ability to see groups of discs from the JBOD as a couple of virtual drives (eg Movies, TV, Documentary etc) from my clients. Each video file would exist in whole on a single disc without being striped across more than one disc. I'm not concerned with super performance as I'm just streaming video and I don't need other features like redundancy or backup here as I'd just re-rip my discs if a drive failed.

3) I have a main server I use in my network so I'll have to see which of these parts I need to add (HBA etc)

The only other issue I'm having is trying to decide to jump on this or wait for a similar deal on a 24 disc version.
 
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canta

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Nov 26, 2014
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just finished 2 days ago...
move ts140 motherboard to this deal supermicro server case :D
ts140 with i3 bought from newegg with promo code-visa checkout-rebate = $165 + $350 (this thread supermicro case).
this replace my aging AMD system with unbuff ecc ddr2 that I built in 2007.
what a power saving on Intel i3 during idle especially, which my old AMD system( already with low power processor) can not beat.

 
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Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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Any thoughts on the SC846E16-R1200B with SAS2-846EL1 vs this 16 port unit? Looking at about 350 ish shipped for the 24 port model.
 

Mark

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Nov 6, 2014
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you're talking this unit? Supermicro SC846E16 R1200B X8DTE F BAREBONES 24 Bay 4U Server | eBay

That should have 2 1200watt PSUs, the seller lists 900watt units which might mean the fans are louder, it doesnt include rails..if it's like my sc836 then rails are required unless you put it on a shelf.
Yeah that's the one I contacted the seller and they can provide rails (40$) and the chassis without the motherboard (didn't discuss how much off for that). Just wondering if there is a big difference in single port expander vs dual port expander?
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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You will probably have little need for the dual-expander (vs the single-expander). It is of most use when putting together High-Availability clusters using dual-port SAS drives. I'll wager that is not your use case - and for you the single-expander is just fine.

What is more important (vital, really) is that you make sure you are getting the SAS2 expander and not the older SAS version. There is nothing in that listing to confirm that this is the SAS2-EL1. If the seller can confirm that then you should be OK.
 

Mark

Member
Nov 6, 2014
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You will probably have little need for the dual-expander (vs the single-expander). It is of most use when putting together High-Availability clusters using dual-port SAS drives. I'll wager that is not your use case - and for you the single-expander is just fine.

What is more important (vital, really) is that you make sure you are getting the SAS2 expander and not the older SAS version. There is nothing in that listing to confirm that this is the SAS2-EL1. If the seller can confirm that then you should be OK.
Thank you for the reply. I currently have 20 drives running off of a Supermicro X9DR7-LN4F (LSI 2308) and a RES2SV240 inside of a full size Lian tower. I'm looking to obviously replace the full tower with something more functional for when I actually need to replace drives or add more. I did get a confirmation over email that the expander is the SAS2-846EL1. I'm assuming 300 + shipping for that configuration isn't a bad deal? Sorry for thread jacking.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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I would consider it reasonable deal. You could do better - but it might take 6 months.

As @RXWatcher pointed out the seller has installed older, noisy non-Gold rated PSUs that might scream like jet engines. You'll need to consider the cost of replacing those as well as the cost of rails. But otherwise it's an ok deal.
 

james23

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Nov 18, 2014
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also note that the sas2 is 6.0/gb (sata II) which is a great backplane, but the included raid card (5805) is only 3.0/gb (not sata II). Im not sure how you plan on interfacing with the backplane, but if your going to use the 5805, i just detailed a huge amount of issues i had with getting any type of sata drive beyond 8x drives to spin up on an adaptec 5805 (and i also tried a 5405z) with a BPN-SAS-846EL1 (not the sas2, this one is the 1.5/gb version) in this thread:

STH forum link