Any suggestions for SAS enclosure, 4 or 8 drives 3.5". DIY or not.

1. offizieller Beitrag

    Looking for suggestions for an enclosure that can contain 4 or 8 drives with a PSU and SAS header. I can't find one that is just that and nothing else. I'm on the fence in regards to backplanes as I don't plan on swapping out home NAS drives often.


    For the structure itself and apart from bending aluminum, I see 5.25" drive cages that can hold up to 5 @ 3.5" drives. Outside of these, I haven't found any type of enclosure that can be cut up to meet these needs (at least not affordable options).


    The SAS header/adapter seems to be a problem as I can't find gender adapters, ie. female to female. Well, there is this but it has a PCB Linkreal 2 Port SFF 8088 to Internal SFF 8087 Transfer Card sff 8087 to sff 8088


    Any suggestions welcomed.

    My OMV server is in a Silverstone DS380 case https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=452


    When I added the eighth and final drive to it I began planning for a seperate DAS box to accommodate more drives in the future.


    I added an LSI 9200-8E SAS card to the OMV server. This card has two external SFF-8088 female connectors. https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod…tle_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


    For the DAS box I decided to use the same case as I did for the server. I added an appropriate power supply and a Mini SAS SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 adapter like the one you linked. https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod…tle_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


    This adapter connects internally to the hard drive backplane using a pair of SAS SFF-8087 to SATA Forward breakout cables. https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod…tle_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1


    The two boxes are connected with a pair of SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 1 meter long cables. https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod…tle_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1


    It all works flawlessly.


    The only thing I would do differently if I had the additional room required would be to use taller Silverstone CS380 cases. https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=709&area=en I believe the drive cooling arrangement is better and having two additional drive bays doesn't hurt.


    Attached is a picture of the rear of the DAS box showing the SFF-8088 ports.


    You can purchase a similar DAS box but it would cost more.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Why SAS drives?


    If you want SAS drives in an external enclosure, you are going to have to buy a real SAS chassis/drive shelf that has a SAS expander in it. Nothing cheaply priced is ever going to support SAS.


    If you really need SAS drives, get a bigger case and use a card and cables like gderf suggested. My tape drive is a SAS drive connected like he suggests.

    omv 7.0.5-1 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.8 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.13 | compose 7.1.4 | k8s 7.1.0-3 | cputemp 7.0.1 | mergerfs 7.0.4


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github - changelogs


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

    Zitat von ryecoaaron

    If you want SAS drives in an external enclosure, you are going to have to buy a real SAS chassis/drive shelf that has a SAS expander in it. Nothing cheaply priced is ever going to support SAS.

    The solution I came up with is fully SAS and SATA hard drive compatible.


    The LSI 9200-8E SAS card supports both SAS and SATA drives transparently.


    The Silverstone DS380 and CS380 cases have a backplane that handles either SAS or SATA drives, or a mixture of them. Each bay location on the cable side of the backplane has individual SAS and SATA ports for the cables. You just have to plug the data cable into the correct port. The backplane connectors that face the hard drives are compatible with both SAS and SATA drives.


    The only potential problem with a setup like this is that the SATA specification restricts the data cable length to one meter. The shortest SFF-8088 cables I could easily find are 1 meter long. The shortest forward breakout cables I could find are 1.6 feet long. The total cable length is therefore 1.48 meters which is over spec, but doesn't seem to be causing any problems. If SAS drives are being used the allowable cable length is much longer, up to 10 meters (33 feet).

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    Zitat von ryecoaaron

    Why SAS drives?

    Honestly, cable management for a secondary box.


    Zitat von gderf

    My OMV server is in a Silverstone DS380 case https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=452


    When I added the eighth and final drive to it I began planning for a seperate DAS box to accommodate more drives in the future.


    I added an LSI 9200-8E SAS card to ....

    Right, right right right. You're at where I'm trying to get to, but when it came to adding the 2nd box, did you feel it was too much space for just drives? That's what's hindering me on the 2nd box... the feeling of too much space for just drives. However, I might have to go that route just to fit a PSU as I'm having a surprisingly hard DIY time finding a lower power PSU without factoring in buck converter none sense for the 5v.

    • Offizieller Beitrag
    Zitat von gderf

    The solution I came up with is fully SAS and SATA hard drive compatible.

    I guess. I have a few LSI cards that work with SAS too. I just don't understand the use of SAS. If you aren't going to put them in a solid backplane with redundant power supplies, then you are probably wasting money.

    omv 7.0.5-1 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.8 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.13 | compose 7.1.4 | k8s 7.1.0-3 | cputemp 7.0.1 | mergerfs 7.0.4


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github - changelogs


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

    • Offizieller Beitrag
    Zitat von olduser

    Honestly, cable management for a secondary box.

    It shouldn't make a difference whether you use SATA or SAS. The price of SAS drives will be much higher though.

    omv 7.0.5-1 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.8 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.13 | compose 7.1.4 | k8s 7.1.0-3 | cputemp 7.0.1 | mergerfs 7.0.4


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github - changelogs


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

    If you go to the link provided for the cases I used (DS380) you will see that there is almost no room available for anything else. The 8 bay drive cage takes all of the internal height available. Front to back is equally tight. The Micro ATX power supply is separated by a small amount from the drive cage.


    I don't have any concerns with the power supplies I used. IIRC, the server motherboard used offers staggered spin-up of hard drives, as does the LSI controller. But I have never needed to use those features. I used these power supplies:


    FSP 300W Mini ITX Solution / SFX 12V / Micro ATX 80 (FSP300-60GHS)


    FSP 450W Mini ITX Solution / SFX 12V / Micro ATX 80 (FSP450-60GH(85)-R)

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von gderf ()

    Zitat von ryecoaaron

    I guess. I have a few LSI cards that work with SAS too. I just don't understand the use of SAS. If you aren't going to put them in a solid backplane with redundant power supplies, then you are probably wasting money.

    I saw no need for spending the additional money on SAS drives. SAS might be potentially faster but my use case will never require that.

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    Zitat von ryecoaaron

    It shouldn't make a difference whether you use SATA or SAS. The price of SAS drives will be much higher though.

    Actually this is for SATA drives. Granted, I could be approaching this all wrong, but it appears that *IF* someone is willing to buy used, then the price of all this is much, much cheaper using SAS components than SATA, at least for adding more than 4 drives (adding just 4 drives then maybe not).


    I bought one of these for $20 USD, it works flashed fine... Lsi-Sas-9200-16e-Host-Bus-Adapter


    The SATA 4-in-1 cables (that I can't find the link for right now) were $20 a piece, shipping wasn't free, I couldn't find them used and their length was only 20 inches max, not to mention I'd need 2 of them pushing the price to a realistic $50. However, if one is willing to buy used (I am), I can find 2 SAS cables for less than $15 shipped. Now, the breakout cables are still needed, but at that point those would always be needed (unless you used a REALLY long SATA cable and connected board to board).

    • Offizieller Beitrag
    Zitat von olduser

    it appears that *IF* someone is willing to buy used, then the price of all this is much, much cheaper using SAS components than SATA, at least for adding more than 4 drives

    Coming from someone who replaces SAS drives at work all the time, don't ever buy a used SAS drive. They most likely came from an enterprise and heavily used. They fail often enough that we try not to use them anymore unless we need a ton of storage.


    My server used to be in the Lian Li PC-D8000 case. I had 32 drives (including 4 DVD and 1 SAS Tape) drive in the case. It had three LSI sas cards and plenty of 4-1 cables. The power cabling is actually a bigger nightmare than the sata cables. If you can get a real backplace that distributes power and allows a mini-sas cable, it is worth a lot.

    omv 7.0.5-1 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.8 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.13 | compose 7.1.4 | k8s 7.1.0-3 | cputemp 7.0.1 | mergerfs 7.0.4


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github - changelogs


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

    It would help if you described the cables you are concerned with. What is this "SATA 4-in-1 cable" you mention?


    Perhaps you are missing the point that all the cables, LSI cards, and bulkhead feedthru card that I used are both SAS and SATA compatible.


    Don't run long SATA data cables (of the type you use inside cases between a motherboard and hard drive) between boxes. They are unshielded.


    Yes, you can find small SAS drives used for less than similar sized SATA drives new. But you will be buying stuff that someone else outgrew. Is that for you? When I buy drives these days they have all been 12TB.


    You got a very good deal on that SAS 9200-16e card.

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    Zitat von ryecoaaron

    ...don't ever buy a used SAS drive.


    My server used to be in the Lian Li PC-D8000 case..

    Funny, I thought the only storage medium I've bought used in 25 years was floppies for old PBX style systems, and the first image that loaded for the D8000 looked like an old PBX... a moment of irony for me :)


    But yeh, I'm not buying SAS new or used for this exact thing. Now the power distribution is why I'm on the fence about the backplane. On one hand I don't want it, but on the other the wire mess (of course I won't have 32 drives to support the directory for the Eastern region :-P).


    But damn, I just wanted to bend up some aluminum in a DIY fashion and say HA! $50 bucks!!... but that's rrrrrrreally not looking plausible.

    Zitat von gderf

    What is this "SATA 4-in-1 cable" you mention?


    Perhaps you are missing the point that all the cables, LSI cards, and bulkhead feedthru card that I used are both SAS and SATA compatible.

    I think I bookmarked the 4-in-1 SATA cable at home, but it seemed horrible as it literally looked like someone just put mesh around 4 SATA cables and molded up proprietary headers (they came in vertical and horizontal orientation)... I really want no part of it.


    Perhaps I am missing the point that you're doing that if it's not for connection and power stability. I'm not a server person so there is vasts, vasts amounts I don't know, but when I see that the cost is cheaper, connections are more reliable and the user/help base is largely revolving around just a few reference vendors... it kind of all seems like a win/win.


    Anyways, I'm off to make my life hell and buy some aluminum to bend up, I'll take pictures of all my failures.

    Aluminum to bend up? I don't get it. I gave you my complete parts list. You need a PC case with fans to hold the drives and power supply and the data interconnect cables.


    What you are going to come up with lacks any consideration for drive cooling and will leak a lot of RF in and out.

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

    2 Mal editiert, zuletzt von gderf ()

    Zitat von gderf

    Aluminum to bend up? I don't get it. I gave you my complete parts list. You need a PC case with fans to hold the drives and power supply and the data interconnect cables.


    What you are going to come up with lacks any consideration for drive cooling and will leak a lot of RF in and out.

    I am taking your suggestions on EVERYTHING BUT the case... surely you can understand I want to tinker a bit myself :) BTW, if I didn't already have a NAS of any type, I would undoubtedly buy that so that link is still good to pass forward and I still might buy it (but $200 for just a drive enclosure, I have to at least attempt DIY first). Honestly, thank you!

    Use any case you want to. All it has to do is accept some number of drives and a power supply, even a used one would do there.


    Where I live, people throw stuff away that is more than good enough. Hot swappable drive bays add a lot of cost. If you can do without that, great.


    Good luck.

    --
    Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle!


    OMV AMD64 7.x on headless Chenbro NR12000 1U 1x 8m Quad Core E3-1220 3.1GHz 32GB ECC RAM.

Jetzt mitmachen!

Sie haben noch kein Benutzerkonto auf unserer Seite? Registrieren Sie sich kostenlos und nehmen Sie an unserer Community teil!

Benutzerkonto erstellen Anmelden