I needed some more storage in my main NAS, so I added a SAS JBOD to my server to get 12 more HDD bays. I go over how I connected the JBOD to my server and configured it in software to use raid with ZFS
I have that same isilon unit you have. I ripped out the the mother board and run an internal sas to external sas cable from the backplane, out the case and into an hba card in my dell 730. It's been working great.
Thanks for a great video. I am building a budget server instead of buying a new one. So I picked up a socket 1200 server motherboard and a e2388g cpu. This is housed in a 4u rack chassi. Now the problem I have is if I should go with SAS or sata. I have an old Lsi 9207 in the server that is only connected to a tapedrive and has some ports available. Also, I can not seem to find cheap drive cages with SAS connections. SAS seems so cool, but I don`t have the budget for u.3/u.2 drives or even SAS SSds as they cost an arm and a leg. Or well, maybe I could buy one or max two, but I have no idea about if you can just expand the storage later. It is to be used as a proxmox server.
Hey there Electronics Wizardry. I really enjoy your videos! You have a lot of useful information to share and present it very clearly without a lot of excess fluff that so many content creators throw in. I appreciate that! Quick question... I'm looking for rack mount Direct Attach storage solutions that use SAS, but I don't need the SAS expanders and the daisy chain capability that most JBOD systems have, rather, prefer each group of 4 disks to have a dedicated SAS connection (non-expanded): We have a RAID Machine R2424RM, which fits our application very well as it attaches up to 4 drives to each node of our 6 node proxmox cluster (these drives all become part of a ceph spinning pool). Unfortunately, the company that makes these seems to be out of business, and I haven't found a equivalent anywhere else. With your experience in with this type of stuff I'm curious if maybe you have run across something like that.
One possible solution for a replacement JBOD would be a Supermicro SC846 chassis, and the passthrough backplanes. You can but 24 3.5in drives int he front of the 4u server, then connect 24 drive cables to the individual drives, and use the pci brackets to have external connectors on the back. I can't find this configuration for sale though, so you would either have to custom order the backplane into the chassis from a Supermicro reseller or buy the parts and assemble them your self. Here is a guide with the different backplane models, the passthrough ones seem to be exactly what you want here. zacfu.com/2020/04/12/homelab-backplane-for-supermicro-sc846-chassis-the-buying-guide/
@@ElectronicsWizardry Hey! I think you nailed it! I didn't know Supermicro sold a pass-through style backplane like that. The BPN-SAS-846A would be perfect for our application. It looks like the 846BA-R920B chassis comes with this backplane. I could certainly get the SAS cables/brackets to pass the SAS connections to the rear of the case. Perfect!
I believe it is a Cisco server from the UCS series? Can you tell me whether the Cisco model only requires Cisco branded hardware. RAM will certainly not matter, but can you also use HDD/SSD or Raid/HBA controllers from other OEM manufacturers? THX
There is no card the backplane. The spot where the motherboard goes is empty. There is a sas expander on the backplane that splits one sff8087 to connect to 12 drives.
@@ElectronicsWizardry I'm still new to this, so I'm trying to build my own and I'm confused by what I see at the 2 min mark. There's a board and that gets power from the power supply, what's that board do? Is it a jbod control board or something in place of a motherboard to give the sas expander/drives power?
That little board in the middle of the sas jbod is just to turn the power supply on. This does basically the same thing as shorting the green and black wires on a atx power supply, making it so power supply and sas jbod is always running. There is no data going through that board. All the data is going through the drive backplane. Think of this jbod as a modded super micro server. Instead of the drives connecting to a motherboard in the case they connect to a motherboard in a different case.
I can check the board number in about a week as I don't have access to the jbod currently. But shorting the green and black wires will do the same job as this board.
