Expanding my Supermicro X10SL7-F based setup. The motherboard is EOL, but it is working great so I looked for a solution where I could upgrade a bit and grow off what I have.
I have the following parts:
Q1 Supermicro CSE-826BE16-R920LPB 2U Server Chassis 2x920W 12x 3.5" BPN-SAS2-826EL1
Q1 BPN-SAS3-826EL1 Supermicro 2U 12 Bay SAS/SATA Expander Backplane
Q2 Supermicro CBL-SAST-0591 75cm Cross-over Mini SAS HD to 4x SATA Internal Cable
I upgraded the backplane expander to the SAS3 version for future growth, but this may have been frivolous as all my HDDs are 3.5" SATA. The cables are SFF-8643 for the replacement SAS3 backplane. I am ready to start migrating, but I have two groups of questions that both pertain to SAS:
Q1) The X10SL7-F has SGPIO and the SAS3 backplane has I2C so clearly the sideband connection is not going to happen. What will I lose by not having this connection between the mbd based HBA and the backplane/expander? Will HDD LED on/activity still be shown up front communicated through the SAS connection? Without adding a SAS HBA or swapping the mbd, is there a way to add in I2C communication? Does it matter? Can anyone make me stop obsessing over it?
Q2) The X10SL7-F has an integrated LSI-2308 that has eight SAS connections. The backplane has four SAS connectors, and it looks like I could connect both sets of SAS connections from the mbd to PRI-J1 and PRI-J2 on the BPN-SAS3-826EL1 via the above listed cables. I realize the LSI-2308 is not going to yield any better than 6 Gb/s, but will throughput be helped by doubling up?
I have the following parts:
Q1 Supermicro CSE-826BE16-R920LPB 2U Server Chassis 2x920W 12x 3.5" BPN-SAS2-826EL1
Q1 BPN-SAS3-826EL1 Supermicro 2U 12 Bay SAS/SATA Expander Backplane
Q2 Supermicro CBL-SAST-0591 75cm Cross-over Mini SAS HD to 4x SATA Internal Cable
I upgraded the backplane expander to the SAS3 version for future growth, but this may have been frivolous as all my HDDs are 3.5" SATA. The cables are SFF-8643 for the replacement SAS3 backplane. I am ready to start migrating, but I have two groups of questions that both pertain to SAS:
Q1) The X10SL7-F has SGPIO and the SAS3 backplane has I2C so clearly the sideband connection is not going to happen. What will I lose by not having this connection between the mbd based HBA and the backplane/expander? Will HDD LED on/activity still be shown up front communicated through the SAS connection? Without adding a SAS HBA or swapping the mbd, is there a way to add in I2C communication? Does it matter? Can anyone make me stop obsessing over it?
Q2) The X10SL7-F has an integrated LSI-2308 that has eight SAS connections. The backplane has four SAS connectors, and it looks like I could connect both sets of SAS connections from the mbd to PRI-J1 and PRI-J2 on the BPN-SAS3-826EL1 via the above listed cables. I realize the LSI-2308 is not going to yield any better than 6 Gb/s, but will throughput be helped by doubling up?