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45Drives Storinator Rabbit hole. converting from SAS2 (SFF-8087) to SAS3 (SFF-8482)

Welp started off as a hey look at the video on used storage. Wow, that has gotten real cheap time for a server upgrade. My current server is 15x 12TB drives with only 17TB of free space, so I have been thing of doing a server upgrade. Well that or doing a data purge, and well like a proper data hoarder I will never delete my ummmm "Linux ISOs". I decided why not take this time and do a big upgrade, Motherboard/CPU/RAM ended up landing on a AMD EPYC 7402p with 128GB of ram and then planned on adding 10x 18TB drives. 

After ordering the drives I started looking into power for the drives and realized If I wanted to keep all my 12TB drives as well as the new drives I was looking at either dual PSU, Janky 12v-5v conversion, or custom/industrial PSU. Being the type of person I was I liked the idea of the Jank and was planning on pulling 12v from the PCI-E buss and dropping it down to 5v.
Would you believe it that same day I found a Storinator on Facebook marketplace. The person wanted $700s shipped to my door. Contacted then, #%$@, it was already sold. Seller said they did server recycling/reselling and should have another in a week or so and offered to let me know when he had one. I was game, off handedly I said I only needed the Case "Backplane" and PSU as I had my own Hardware to go in. Turns out that was the right thing to say as it happened they had a "as-is" Storinator that they confirmed the PSU was "backplane" was working in. hell ya, Offered it for $350 shipped. Since I was looking at about $300 for my Jank PSU build for my old case I figured this was a no brainer. 

Here comes the fun. Storinator shows up, its the model based on the Backblaze Storage POD 4.0 I believe its the same model as Linus just modified in his home NAS video. Ordered 2x LSI 9300-16i SAS cards, and my server board has 2x SAS3 port on the motherboard to allow up to 40 drives to be used. Since I only had 25 spinner Storage drives and 4x SSD cache drives planned to use tought that would be plenty of room for expantion before figuring out how to connect the last 5 slots. 

Nope my "smart" self forgot that version of the Storinator was SAS2 😭 Since SAS2 and SAS3 are pin compatible I was sure I could find an adapter. Nope all the cables/adapter I found where the wrong side of the SAS2 connector. I did find a SAS2 coupling adapter, but that felt like even to much jank to me. Storinator cables into a coupler adapter into a SFF-8087 to SFF-8643 cable, that felt like asking for corrupt data to me. 

After digging through a few forms and stumbling across a few people upgrading the old Backlaze Storage POD 3.0 cases. I found what I was looking for cables to completely replace the old SAS2 cables. https://www.highpoint-tech.com/product-page/8643-4sas-1m and or https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807289469751.html and I found these that should allow me to connect the last 5 drives spots using onboard sata ports. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807319807890.html

There was hope, more waiting for things to show up. The highpoint-tech only had 5 cables in stock but I needed 10 so I also bought 5 of the aliexpress cables. as well as 2 of the sata cables. 

I just got the highpoint-tech cables in and crap, the mounting holes are not the same and the highpoint-tech cable connectors are not wide enough to tap new holes in the case for mounting. Enter 3D Printer, I modeled up an small adapter plate for the new cables, a dirty test print worked perfectly, the drive sits about 1-2mm higher then the original cable. But it still fits in the case and lid closes. The adapter is currently 3mm thick, I think I can make it 2mm and still have it be strong enough.

Right now I'm printing out a "final" adapter as the screw holes where to big. not sure how well the screws will hold into the plastic, but really how often will I be ripping drives out of this thing. 

Next steps, waiting on Aliexpress cables to show up, what are the chances they will be the same mouting points.... one can hope. 

SFF-8482 Mini SAS To SATA Connection Cable 29P-SATA Hard Disk Server Data Cable
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807319807890.html

12G MINI SAS SFF-8643 To 8482 (4SAS) 1/4 RAID Hard Drive Data Cable
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807289469751.html

1M 8643 SAS to 4x SAS with Power cable
https://www.highpoint-tech.com/product-page/8643-4sas-1m


 

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I got my adapter plate done for the HighPoint-Tech cables It works great. The pic shows me reusing the original screws, but I plan to melt in some threaded inserts to give them a chance of surviving a cable replacement. 

I'm still worried about the cables as there are two problems 
1. HighPoint-Tech cables are straight cables so when you mount the plate back into the server you have to squish the cables at an uncomfortable angle to get them to fit. 
2. The original cables that came with the server had the power wired up with two hard drives per Molex power connecter. Where these HighPoint-Tech cables are a Molex connector per Hard drive. I either have to get out the soldering iron and combine the cables or use the Molex splitters. With space already tight I don't know if the Molex splitters will fit. 


I found a company making this type of cable but with a 90-degree bend and 2 drives per power connector. I ordered 2 cables for testing. I have high hopes that these cables
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196873954810 



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5 hours ago, Kikaider said:

I got my adapter plate done for the HighPoint-Tech cables It works great. The pic shows me reusing the original screws, but I plan to melt in some threaded inserts to give them a chance of surviving a cable replacement. 

I'm still worried about the cables as there are two problems 
1. HighPoint-Tech cables are straight cables so when you mount the plate back into the server you have to squish the cables at an uncomfortable angle to get them to fit. 
2. The original cables that came with the server had the power wired up with two hard drives per Molex power connecter. Where these HighPoint-Tech cables are a Molex connector per Hard drive. I either have to get out the soldering iron and combine the cables or use the Molex splitters. With space already tight I don't know if the Molex splitters will fit. 


I found a company making this type of cable but with a 90-degree bend and 2 drives per power connector. I ordered 2 cables for testing. I have high hopes that these cables
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196873954810 




 

BE VERY CAREFUL with those cables. They look like the ones that melt and start fires. With adapters, you want crimped connectors, not plastic injected ones.

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