Supermicro 847BE1C Build - Need Help

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BecauseScience

New Member
Feb 3, 2016
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I'm migrating my NAS from a Rosewill RSV-L4500 to a Supermicro 847BE1C chassis. This is the one I will use:

Supermicro CSE-847BE1C-R1K28LPB



I will reuse the the cpu, memory, SAS HBA, and disks from the current system.
Motherboard: Supermicro X10SLH-F
HBA: IBM M1015

Requirements
R1) Connect the M1015 to both front and rear backplanes.
R2) Install two 2.5" drives inside the chassis using the internal drive bay(s).
R3) Add the optional dual 2.5" disk hotswap cages on the rear of the chassis (immediately to the right of the power supplies).
R4) Have "enclosure features" on the backplanes working so that I can identify drives via LED.
R5) All cabling up to SAS3 standards. I plan to upgrade to an SAS3 HBA at some point.
R6) All fans that are PWM should be controlled by the motherboard in variable speed mode.

Plan
Connect two ports of the HBA to the front backplane using two SFF-8087 to SAS HD cables.
Connect the remaining two ports from the front backplane to the rear backplane using two SAS HD to SAS HD cables.
M1015 -> front backplane -> rear backplane

Open Questions
Q1) Is my plan to connect the HBA and backplanes the right way to do it?
Q2) What length SAS cables do I need?
Q2) Do I need Supermicro MCP-220-84701-0N to mount two 2.5" drives in the internal bay?
Q3) Is Supermicro MCP-220-84701-0N the correct accessory to add the rear 2.5" hotswap bays?
Q4) What do I have to do to enable enclosure management features, specifically the drive identification LED's? Is it possible with my HBA? Do I need SAS cables with sideband?
Q5) Do I need to buy any additional cabling/splitters to connect all of the chassis fans to my motherboard?
Q6) Do I need any miscellaneous cables for power to motherboard, backplanes, 2.5" rear hotswap, etc. Any cables that I missed anywhere?

It would be great if I could get exact recommendations (with part numbers) for the SAS cables.

Thanks for reading!
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
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NYC
I think you're OK with the cabling

If that's like the SC847 I have, I'd suggest just getting the 12Gb SAS HBA to start with and have the connector face the rear not up on the PCIe card like the M1015. It will make for a much better install. I have a non-expander version and I used 3M cables which were too long. I think the 1M were too short for all of the cable positions (again not an expander version) but there's a LOT of room to tuck cables away. It is a pain to re-wire. You might have something installed already if you buy the case. But I'd really stress I did the re-wire of the SC847 from 6G to 12G cables once and I never want to do it again.

From the picture I think you're fine on the 2.5" into the 2.5" bays.

If you get SAS 3 cables I think they have the sideband built-in standard.

Prob OK on fan headers, but you may end up needing fan extension cables if I remember our install
 

BecauseScience

New Member
Feb 3, 2016
19
2
3
I moved the guts of my old nas into the sc847. I connected two ports of my m1015 to the front backplane, then two cables from front to back backplane. I've tried disks in both backplanes and they're working great. Drive identification lights work too. I have no idea which backplane ports I used for what. I couldn't see the markings and was too lazy to pull the backplanes.

PSU fan noise is zero. I've yet to hear a peep from them. I'm not even sure they're running. The psu's in this chassis are the PWS-1K28P-SQ (1kw platinum).

My next project is to do something about the chassis fan noise. I wouldn't say they're loud but they have a very annoying sound profile even at low rpms. I have another supermicro fan on order as a test. It's not listed as being compatible with the sc847 but from pictures it looks like it will fit the existing fan hotswap brackets in the chassis. It's from one of their SQ "super quiet" chassis so I'm hopeful that it'll sound ok.

I ended up with the chassis fans on the FAN2 header. That syncs them to the pwm speed of the cpu fan. I tried the FANA header but it seems to have a faster minimum speed than the cpu thermal zone (FAN1, FAN2, ...) The downside is that every time I run something the chassis fans spin up higher. I use this box for more than just a nas so that's a problem. I hope to move the chassis fans back to FANA once I've replaced the current fans.

I'm also running a low profile GTX750TI in this box. It's working great too.
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
2,669
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artofserver.com
Hi Kristof: I'm considering a new build based on the 847 chassis as well, but one of my primary concerns is noise. Have you had any success reducing the noise level of the chassis fans? What worked and what didn't? Like you, my server will be more than a NAS, it will also host several VMs so I'm very interested in your results.