supermicro chassis SC846, backplane questions

[nephri]

I have a SC846 (SC846BA-R920B to be exact). I've replaced the TQ backplane (no expander) with BPN-SAS3-846EL1 SAS3 backplane with expander. It was not hard to replace, took maybe 10 minutes total.

You had a 846A chassis with a TQ backplane ? it should be a BPN-SAS-846A backplane instead !

 

[nephri]

How many cost you the BPN-SAS3 ?

 

[Wixner]

Oups, a reply back from SuperMicro

They answer a mistake, BPN-SAS2-846EL2 supports only failover dual linking but none for efficiency.
They have no backplane for dual link aggregation.

So no plan to achieve that... it's a bad sound for me...

Thid is weird since I got this answer regarding my BPN-SAS2-216EL

"Yes, BPN-SAS2-216EL supports Dual Link Multilane to increase the bandwidth from one HBA / Raid Controller to one SAS-expander. It also depends on the HBA / RAID controller for this feature."

However I can't get it right using my Intel RS2BL080 (LSI 9260-8i, 2108 RoC)

 

[PnoT]

@Wixner have you read @TuxDude report on how he got his card to register all 8 lanes? I think he used port 7 & 8 on the backplane.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/playing-with-my-sas-expander.7420/

 

[ponky]

How many cost you the BPN-SAS3 ?

I found it for 249€ from eBay. It was brand new.

 

[ponky]

You had a 846A chassis with a TQ backplane ? it should be a BPN-SAS-846A backplane instead !

Yes, my bad. The backplane was BPN-SAS-846A, not TQ

 

[nephri]

I found it for 249€ from eBay. It was brand new.

Wow, really great DEAL IMHO

 

[cheezehead]

Sigh, all the haters for the TQ backplanes. TQ backplanes are a perfect pairing for ZFS/BTRFS/Storage Spaces... Outside of the cable mess, and upgrade when you upgrade your controller.

 

[RyC]

With the TQ backplane I can route drives to separate controllers which are passed through to separate VMs in ESXi running two completely separate storage pools for different purposes in the same system! WS2012 running Storage Spaces for general storage and Windows 7 running DrivePool+SnapRAID for a"virtualized HTPC".

 

[nephri]

TQ or A backplanes are relatively equals except of cables numbers.
I would prefer a A since it's require only 6 SFF-8087 instead of 24 SATA/SAS connectors.

But i agree, using such backplane without expander chips have some interrest but requires much more HBA or bigger ones.

 

[Wixner]

I just got this reply from SM-support:

"The statement found in the “forum” is INCORRECT. Refer to our SAS2 or SAS3 expander backplane, no matter it’s EL1 or EL2 model, they all support dual-link, i.e. using 2 ports from HBA to the same expander to increase bandwidth."

 

[PnoT]

I just got this reply from SM-support:

"The statement found in the “forum” is INCORRECT. Refer to our SAS2 or SAS3 expander backplane, no matter it’s EL1 or EL2 model, they all support dual-link, i.e. using 2 ports from HBA to the same expander to increase bandwidth."

That supports what @TuxDude found as well. Thanks for digging into this for us Wixner.

 

[cheezehead]

TQ or A backplanes are relatively equals except of cables numbers.
I would prefer a A since it's require only 6 SFF-8087 instead of 24 SATA/SAS connectors.

But i agree, using such backplane without expander chips have some interrest but requires much more HBA or bigger ones.

I'd prefer an A backplane as well for my usage but they are unfortunately are hard to come by or cost a lot vs the TQ's which almost given away.

 

[vikingboy]

I went with the A backplane in the end too, I already have the HBA's. Picked up a 846A-R1200B with X8DT3-LN4F motherboard and Areca 1280ML for $250 recently. Should be able to sell off those parts and net out close to zero for the chassis, drive trains, PSU and backplane.

 

[nephri]

I went with the A backplane in the end too, I already have the HBA's. Picked up a 846A-R1200B with X8DT3-LN4F motherboard and Areca 1280ML for $250 recently. Should be able to sell off those parts and net out close to zero for the chassis, drive trains, PSU and backplane.

You buyed it yesterday ? i saw this auction !! i would bid on it but the seller ask me 500$ for shipping to france that force me to let this auction for others. 250$ was a great deal imho :-/

 

[i386]

and connect the third port to a rear external SAS connector.

Anybody knows if it's possible to use a fanout cable and connect the rear drives (from the "b" chassis) to the third port on the backplane?