looking at jbod, sas enclosures, das, etc. getting lost in the sauce.

[Takumidesh]

So I am looking to expand drive capacity on my home server.

 

Currently I have a rack mount case with 14 drive slots. however they are internal, hard to manager and require me pulling the server out taking the top cover off, removing screws, and pulling the whole drive bay out to service just one drive.

So I want to change that. however in my research it gets pretty confusing.

 

system is unraid and currently using all 6 motherboard sata ports and I am about to install an HBA. I plan to move all the current drives to the hba.

I am ok with keeping some drives in the case, specifically the solid state drives and will likely have some nvme drives soon for cache that will be direct attached to the motherboard.

 

However I would like to move all spinning drives to an external enclosure with front access, rack mount.

 

Where I get confused is what device I actually need.

I can run HBAs that have outside facing sas connectors so that solves the problem of getting the connectors out to the other device. But a lot of what I see are actual servers, as far as I understand all I need is the drive slots, and something that splits out the sas appropriately (backplane?) and some way to power the devices.

If someone could point me in the direction of what I actually need here it would be great and if i explained this poorly let me know and I will try to refine my question.

 

 

 

EDIT: I should mention the server itself is all consumer hardware, so there is no native sas multiplexer or anything.

[m9x3mos]

3 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

So I am looking to expand drive capacity on my home server.

 

Currently I have a rack mount case with 14 drive slots. however they are internal, hard to manager and require me pulling the server out taking the top cover off, removing screws, and pulling the whole drive bay out to service just one drive.

So I want to change that. however in my research it gets pretty confusing.

 

system is unraid and currently using all 6 motherboard sata ports and I am about to install an HBA. I plan to move all the current drives to the hba.

I am ok with keeping some drives in the case, specifically the solid state drives and will likely have some nvme drives soon for cache that will be direct attached to the motherboard.

 

However I would like to move all spinning drives to an external enclosure with front access, rack mount.

 

Where I get confused is what device I actually need.

I can run HBAs that have outside facing sas connectors so that solves the problem of getting the connectors out to the other device. But a lot of what I see are actual servers, as far as I understand all I need is the drive slots, and something that splits out the sas appropriately (backplane?) and some way to power the devices.

If someone could point me in the direction of what I actually need here it would be great and if i explained this poorly let me know and I will try to refine my question.

 

 

 

EDIT: I should mention the server itself is all consumer hardware, so there is no native sas multiplexer or anything.

Do you really need quick access to the drives that you can't shut down the machine to do that? 

Normally I would suggest just using an hba internally and using the drives mounted in the case. 

Anything external is going to be janky or unreliable. 

Unless you want to buy a back plane another power supply to use with it and the drives, then rig up some sort of quick swap for it, it will be difficult. 

[Takumidesh]

11 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

Do you really need quick access to the drives that you can't shut down the machine to do that? 

Normally I would suggest just using an hba internally and using the drives mounted in the case. 

Anything external is going to be janky or unreliable. 

Unless you want to buy a back plane another power supply to use with it and the drives, then rig up some sort of quick swap for it, it will be difficult. 

i don't care if I have to shutdown the machine.
I don't need hot swap or anything like that.

What I don't like doing is having to do is pull the server out of the rack, remove panels, unbolt the carriage for the drives, pull all 7 (plus more in the future) drives out, balance them on top of the case, just to service one drive.

 

Additionally, the drives plus sata + power cables makes the case really tight, and they completely block the two intake fans into the case, it's fine with <4 drives. but it quickyl becomes unmanageble

(when I say block, i mean they literally touch the front fans)

this is the case:

The green part is the drive bay, it is bolted in and a full carriage, so the top part doesn't just come off, you have to pull the whole thing out, with all of the drives inside, I have almost dropped it like 5 times already haha.

I plan on having around 22 drives in all, which already exceeds the max the case can handle, and realistically it can't even handle the 14 it says.
 

11 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

Anything external is going to be janky or unreliable. 

What makes you say this?

 

 

edit: it isn't so much about speed or quick access, it's that this case makes it actually dangerous to the hardware to manage it, you have to kind of bang around the carriage to get it in and out.

editedit: with more drives I am also running into the issue of available sata power connection. I am already running one startech 4x cable extender, I don't want to keep piggybacking the connectors.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why not just get. 4u case with 24 hot swap bays. Then its only one unit, and you can easily change drives. Something like this is what Id get. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255572451192?hash=item3b814e1f78:g:cTsAAOSwsYFin94N&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4HN1t4YNSZY0VBMl8gEac8FbJZ5StvhdThuf%2B8RA6pLbtRv8tzVc6LZrc%2FASxTGHRjMbaQnCzmIzbR9ODRw3YThXoxTauhgasLKkLP9PgLCEz9BtIq3lQTqPb41lzaQvNP8P5O7OEOIscikGENt2c8tXswMGUdouUu3yU9Zoa69pcAMusSudTkPoOXJfkBu7Qx89bWY%2FloPOBuyk0oXT9iGuZqddL%2BF%2Ffuh8GH4tyD8fmi5l0GkXuBVHBbcetsqNmsCaf9m7GDqMn9KkJCu14VOHr0h13hRcn4GPAfQ9hgdU|tkp%3ABFBMoN3ameVh

 

 

[Takumidesh]

31 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why not just get. 4u case with 24 hot swap bays. Then its only one unit, and you can easily change drives. Something like this is what Id get. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255572451192?hash=item3b814e1f78:g:cTsAAOSwsYFin94N&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4HN1t4YNSZY0VBMl8gEac8FbJZ5StvhdThuf%2B8RA6pLbtRv8tzVc6LZrc%2FASxTGHRjMbaQnCzmIzbR9ODRw3YThXoxTauhgasLKkLP9PgLCEz9BtIq3lQTqPb41lzaQvNP8P5O7OEOIscikGENt2c8tXswMGUdouUu3yU9Zoa69pcAMusSudTkPoOXJfkBu7Qx89bWY%2FloPOBuyk0oXT9iGuZqddL%2BF%2Ffuh8GH4tyD8fmi5l0GkXuBVHBbcetsqNmsCaf9m7GDqMn9KkJCu14VOHr0h13hRcn4GPAfQ9hgdU|tkp%3ABFBMoN3ameVh

 

 

That would probably solve my scenario, but the price seems pretty steep. $500 for a used case without any trays (from my researching thay are about $10-15 each so add another ~$250) Is that what you would say is a pretty standard price?

[Takumidesh]

Would it be possible to use hba -> 8086 cable -> usb/PCIE card & sas expander in second case -> to drives?

 

so then any cheapo case would work.

edit: something like this ebay link? $350 with trays and what appears to be existing sas expanders/ backplane included (don't care about the included drives)

[Blue4130]

https://chrisbergeron.com/2020/03/07/diy_das_part1/

 

This is what you are asking about, but really, if you are needing to service your disks so frequently, get better disks.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

That would probably solve my scenario, but the price seems pretty steep. $500 for a used case without any trays (from my researching thay are about $10-15 each so add another ~$250) Is that what you would say is a pretty standard price?

Look a bit more on ebay, thats just a example and the first one I found.

 

3 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

Would it be possible to use hba -> 8086 cable -> usb/PCIE card & sas expander in second case -> to drives?

 

so then any cheapo case would work.

edit: something like this ebay link? $350 with trays and what appears to be existing sas expanders/ backplane included (don't care about the included drives)

THose are 2.5in drives, probably not what you want for mass storage

[Takumidesh]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

https://chrisbergeron.com/2020/03/07/diy_das_part1/

 

This is what you are asking about, but really, if you are needing to service your disks so frequently, get better disks.

Mostly its that I am buying more on a pretty regular schedule lol

 

19 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Look a bit more on ebay, thats just a example and the first one I found.

yea I have already found some better options after digging!

 

19 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

THose are 2.5in drives, probably not what you want for mass storage

missed that!

[Takumidesh]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

https://chrisbergeron.com/2020/03/07/diy_das_part1/

 

This is what you are asking about, but really, if you are needing to service your disks so frequently, get better disks.

this is a great resource!

I am definitely leaning towards just replacing the case with a better design. unfortunately, it is seriously such an absolute hassle to work in this case that it gives me buyers remorse looking at it sometimes. I may post a picture here when I crack it open to put this hba in.