Reddit mentions: The best mini-sas cables

TLDNR; Without having more info on what I described in the first paragraph. I'd say just buy a couple 10TB Easystores on sale ($180ea) and use your current SBCs and smaller server setups. After I wrote all of this I saw that you are from AUS(I think), so no clue if you can get close to $18 per TB in your area, but prices are coming down every year so sometimes better to just save $$$. It is super fun to think about a new and more powerful setup, plus buying it and putting it together, but as you can see I've done a lot of this thinking already. You are also probably feeling guilty that you have to make use of all your 2TBs, but lots of little HDDs do require more electricity to power up and cool. You need storage density and you cant get around that. Upgrade to 10TB and use the 2TB as a cold storage (backup). You are at a heck of a crossroads because the cost to go from SBCs to a "Proper" server plus buying storage isnt a cheap one. Currently there are limited stepping stones, but more powerful SBCs and Ryzen Embedded are here and on the way so wait if possible. Either way you go, you will spend more money and use up storage faster than you planned... The more powerful SBCs arent always cheap either, once you factor in cost of: memory card, power supply, case, possible heatsink/extra heat sinks, a fan, etc. Their lower price starts creeping into the middle range...


What brand, how many, and how long have the 2TBs been powered on for? It sounds like you are currently swapping out the 2TBs for others depending on what you want to watch and on which HDD it is? Do you have any projected storage numbers and what is your current and future budget? You mentioned that you have a small dedicated server? Is that another SBC or what is with that setup and how many sata ports? I'd forgo the transcoding ideas and nix buying any sort of new "Server" options. Focus on reusing what you have or going with a "Used" setup, so you can start saving that money for when 8TB or 10TB Easystores go on sale.

IMO for a true new build you'd want to price in ECC RAM, UPS, and I personally prefer a case that has hot swap access to HDDs. The Rosewill that meemo linked cant be beat for the price especially since it comes with 7 fans, but it requires extra steps to access the HDDs (internally only), which may be fine for you. There is Mediasonic (JBOD version only) that you could plug into your SBC, but that technically isnt hot swappable either, plus it is USB 3.1 to USB-C which isnt the worst but it isnt the best... I know you wanted to get away from SBCs, but if you disable transcoding there are some SBCs that use SATA to SATA connections that are very viable. Any SBC or standalone storage that uses USB is a potential risk, since USB can suffer connection issues when doing rebuilding, parity, and scrubbing maintenance (same if your power goes out, hence a need for UPS). Helios4 is a time restricted option, since they only open up orders once or twice a year (they are currently taking orders). *I saw a post saying that since the Helios4 is a 32bit processor, so it is limited to 16TB volumes. You get 2GB ECC + 4x SATA and I believe you can use any HDD size with that (double check tho), so 4 separate 10TB volumes (4x$180sale=$720+tax), not including parity... I'm not sure how the 32bit and the 16TB volume limit effect drive pooling... I gotta research more into that. I'm not familiar with the UnRaid, FreeNAS, or the other options that you mentioned, but OpenMediaVault4 has MergerFS drive pooling and Snapraid plugin, you could run 3x storage HDD and 1x parity or you could forgo parity for now. If you prefer Windows (You can also run omv4 on windows in a VM) there is Stablebit Drivepool (Not free) for pooling and then Snapraid (not completely novice friendly) for parity. Depending on the HDD type you could reuse the discarded Easystore enclosures and put your 2TB drives in there (still USB connection). If they are a different brand (non WD/HGST) I think you have to desolder something on the Easystore board? I lost the link on how to do that. You could also just keep the 2TB as cold storage backups, but that still carries a risk, but it's cheaper. You could also get 2nd Helios, but for about the same price you could use that money on a 10TB. That would replace 5x of your 2TB drives... Not too mention the extra electricity to power and cool 5x drives vs 1x drive... As you can see, storage density starts coming into play here, big time.
UPS https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N18S/
Mediasonic https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078YQHWYW/
Helios4 https://shop.kobol.io/collections/frontpage/products/helios4-full-kit-2gb-ecc-3rd-batch-pre-order?variant=18881501528137
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/as17od/helios4_batch_3_available_for_preorder/

There are other SATA SBCs that you could use and you could also do a janky setup and put the SATA SBCs inside a hot swappable case like this Silverstone one. There are other cases, but this is the only name that came to mind. This case also doesnt have any power supply or fans to cool the HDDs so there will be extra cost there, plus you'll need a power supply, PLUS a way to turn on your power supply (with a power board), since that SBC setup wont have a motherboard. You can also make your own "Dumb" JBOD HDD enclosure and connect that to your mini server. Another option to SBCs is the ASRock cpu+mobo line: J3455-ITX, J4105-ITX, annd J5005-ITX. The issue with this that it appears you are still limited to 4x SATA or other variations of these boards have a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot at x1 or x2 transfer lanes/speed instead of x8 or x16... Also you have to factor in the price of ram and a mini PICO power supply. There is a subreddit+website that focuses on used parts for cheap server setups, but you might want to verify the power consumption of those setups when they are idling. With the NAS killer option, you gotta make sure all of the parts are still available on ebay or refurb sites, plus make sure you have time to build your setup to verify everything is working plus stress test it before the return window closes to weed out any weak used parts.
Silverstone https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IAELTAI/
HDD enclosure option https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/
Power Board https://www.amazon.com/Super-Micro-Computer-Supermicro-Cse-ptjbod-cb2/dp/B008FQZHZE
J3455-ITX https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-157-728
https://www.serverbuilds.net/nas-killer-v30/

Another option if you really want transcoding and a more powerful "Server" would be a Dell Optiplex 7010, which are used business computers that are "Refurbished", but I think they just take them from that company and wipe the hard drive, nothing else. The Minitower Desktop version is roomier than the slightly cheaper SFF (SmallFormFactor) version, which might be important if you want to swap out the power supply, watch the youtube video to get an idea of what you are getting into. Since a cheap power supply is a weak point plus a potential hazard I'd recommend swapping in a new power supply, but you could risk it with its current power supply. Everything else should last for a good while. You'll also need to install a HBA card. You can get Genuine used cards that were in good working order or you could get a new knock off from China. Both options are viable, but personally I prefer the used option. Theartofserver, ebay seller, also has a youtube channel, so I purchased from him, but I have also purchased from other sellers and got good working parts (I think Ebay still has the most honest and accurate rating system out there?). Since the Optiplex doesnt have room for internal HDDs then you are left with a few options with various HBA cards (internal vs external), expander cards, and adapter setups (SFF-8087 to SFF-8088). If you want it to look "Proper" there will be a lot of wasted money on 2x adapters (1x Optiplex + 1x external HDD enclosure) and an extra SFF-8088 cable between the two. I'd just go janky with it and get a longer reverse breakout cable of 3.3feet (4x SATA to 1x SFF-8087), which should be long enough to go from your external HDDs setup into the Optiplex case and internally connected to the HBA card, like the popular 9201-8i. The janky part being that you'll have the reverse breakout cable snaking directly into each case, instead of plugging into an adapter in the back.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K0GNUOG/
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Breakout-SFF-8087/dp/B018YHS9GM
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-LSI-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-LSI-9201-8i-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162958581156
Single adapter https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133055
Double adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GPD9QEQ/
SFF-8080 cable https://www.amazon.com/Norco-Technologies-C-SFF8088-External-SFF-8088/dp/B003J9CZCK/

Raw storage:

• 72TB (9 x 8TB RAIDZ2)
  
  
• 36TB (9 x 4TB RAIDZ2)
  
  Total 108TB(18 drives)
  
  Actual storage:
  
  
• 48TiB
  
  
• 24TiB
  
  Total 72TiB
  
  Case:
  
  
• Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Rev. B
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DSFDSUS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• Nanoxia Deep Silence 3 for parts
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Nanoxia-Computer-Controllers-Motherboard-NXDS3B/dp/B00M49SNVI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497552150&sr=8-2&keywords=nanoxia+deep+silence
  
  Used the two bay 3.5" cage, and three bay 2.5" cage from the Deep Silence 3 case.
  
  Fans:
  
  
• 2 140mm top
  
  
• 2 140mm front
  
  
• 2 120mm middle
  
  
• 1 140mm back
  
  
• 2 140mm cpu
  
  Used two 120mm case fans from the Deep Silence 3 case between the two stacks of drives.
  
  Motherboard: Supermicro X10SRA-F
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O7ZK10S/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1620 v3 3.5GHz
  
• https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117512&cm_re=intel_1620-_-19-117-512-_-Product
  
  Heatsink: Noctua DH-D15
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L7UZMAK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  RAM:
  
  
• Micron ECC Registered - 8gb x 4
  
  
• Mircon ECC Registered - 4gb x 4
  
  Total 48gb
  
  PSU: Corsair AX1500i
  
  Controllers:
  
  
• Motherboard - 10 ports
  
  
• LSI 9211-8i - 8 ports
  
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RL8I7M/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    
• Marvell - 2 ports
  
  Total 20 ports
  
  NIC: Mellanox Connectx-2 10g
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0178CNZ9U/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  OS Disks: 2 x Intel 330 60GB, mdadm RAID1
  
  Storage Disks:
  
  
• 9 x Western Digital Red 8TB WD80EFZX
  
  • http://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401
    
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BYLY4DM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    Seven shucked from Best Buy WD easystore externals and two from Amazon as internals.
    
    
• 9 x 4TB drives, mix of Seagates and HGST NAS
  
  • 2 x ST4000DM000
    
  • 2 x ST4000DX000
    
  • 4 x HGST_HDN724040ALE640
    
  • 1 x HGST_HDN726040ALE614
    
    • http://www.frys.com/product/9112138?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
      
      I originally shucked the Seagates from externals. I have replaced the Seagates as they fail, and I had one fail during this upgrade. Yes, I have had five Seagate failures.
      
      SATA/SAS cables:
      
      
• 10 36" SATA cables
  
  • http://www.frys.com/product/8057794?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
    
    
• 2 24" SATA cables
  
  • http://www.frys.com/product/8057804?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
    
• 2 SAS four port breakout cables
  
  • https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018YHS8BS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    
    OS: Fedora 25 with ZFS for Linux
    
    Cost:
    
    
• Around $2800 without storage
  
  
• Around $3200 for storage
  
  
• Around $6000 total
  
  The cost was spread across years. This is more like two builds in one. My old build with the motherboard, memory, heatsink, CPU, and 4tb drives combined with my new 8tb build. With the 4tb drives I have replaced five of nine drives over time, which has driven up the real total cost.
  
  The case is huge, but all the space is nice. You don't feel like you are cramming anything in. I used a Fractal Design R5 for my previous build, and prefer Fractal Design cases to Nanoxia cases. But the biggest Fractal Design case wouldn't quite suit my needs. Even this was a stretch for the Deep Silence 6 case. I wish the Deep Silence 6 had spots to mount 2.5" drives on the back side like the R5. It is a feature I miss.
  
  I have a few issues. The trays and the screw holes on the WD 8tb drives don't match. The WD drives are missing the middle bottom screw holes. My temporary workaround is strong 3M double sticky foam tape with two screws. I may use a drill and drill holes in the sides of the trays. I had to tape down the 2.5" cage, but the drives are so light it is not a big deal.
  
  After building this beast I had the window closed, the door shut, and no room fan for one day. The room was quite warm. I have since opened the window, turned on the fan, and left the door open.
  
  My Kill-a-watt peaked at 450 watts during boot. It idles between 200-220 watts. So I could go back to my AX760 from my previous build with SATA power splitters.
  
  I still have one tray free, but no extra drive or SATA port.
  
  I was originally going to move the four bay 3.5" cage from the Deep Silence 3, but it was just too integrated into the case. I tried adapting it, and it didn't come out well. Even if it had, the bottom tray was going to sit below the lip of the side of the case. So that tray would have been less accessible.
  
  I am currently copying 18tb from the old array to the new array as a burn-in test.
  
  I got the original idea to build with this case from someone else's post. I probably would have just bought another Fractal Design R5, and run two systems otherwise. I have run two systems for storage before, connected them with 10g, and used iSCSI. When I did I used, https://romanrm.net/mhddfs , to merge the filesystems together. I am considering doing the same again.
  
  With the right cages you could probably fit around 26 3.5" drives in this case.
  
  Over time I have gone from 250gb to 500gb to 1tb to 1.5tb to 2tb to 4tb to 8tb drives. I didn't think I would be upgrading to 8tb anytime soon, until the Best Buy easystore deal. In the past I mostly purchased on Black Fridays. In more recent years externals from Costco.
  
  TLDR: I built a new server combining an existing 24TiB ZFS with a new array of 36TiB ZFS for the win!

Yeah, but with one minor correction: I am not using a breakout in the PC. MB SATA -> 8088 Adapter -> 8088-to-8087 Adapter -> SATA breakout (the listing doesn't actually specify that it's Forward, but the description would make think so) -> HDDs

Yes, all layer one. Every adapter is totally passive.

Expensive? Yeah, probably if I had used two of the dual adapters (which, honestly, now that I'm typing this out I feel like a dingus for not having done that - I'm not sure what I was thinking). This was a cheaper alternative to purchasing a 4-bay Mediasonic and would potentially support up to six drives (assuming I get it working). I could have just run a bunch of long SATA cables between chassis, but that would be really messy, cable-wise, and there's no way I'd be able to move both enclosures at the same time. Unless there's some kind of SATA aggregate option, seemed like my best way to go (which, if that's a thing, I'd be interested in that route too, but some quick-ish googling didn't turn much up).

I was reading about some of those changes in the BIOS, IDE vs AHCI - is that what you're referring to? That certainly could be it, since I did see one drive initially. I'll look into that (and MB support...) tonight while I wait on the PSU replacement.

No intention of using the port multipliers. If I need more than four, I'll probably focus on just running another SATA->SAS adapter and use the second port on the 8088->8087 bracket.

That card you linked has 2 sff-8087 connectors if thats what you have you can use that if you wanted. Each sff-8087 sas port has 4x sata ports basically. Both of your SSDs (and 2 more) should be able to hook up to just one of those ports. The breakout cable that goes from 1 to 4 looks like this: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

You can get a sff-8087 to sff-8088 adapter that converts the internal 4x connection to a external one to connect something like that ds4243, but for about the same money I'd still recommend the LSI adapter if you can verify you can use one more of the pcie slots. Its better to have a non raid card if your going to use something like zfs file system.

What i mean about the eSATA is that its a single sata port, vs the sas ports that are 4x sata ports. The DS4243 and others like it have a multiplexer that lets all 24 connect with that 4x connection. Those istar esata boxes have some kind of multiplexer or a controller as well, but how good/reliable are they vs something enterprise grade i dont know.

There are lots of other used SAS disk shelfs around as well (dell etc) its just about finding a good deal on one that has all its caddys etc. If your lucky maybe you can find one local on craigslist since they are so heavy and shipping is usually half the price.

Awesome. I am by no means an expert but had to do a tonne of reading to come up with my setup and from what I can tell there are a few ways of doing the following:

PSU: Assuming your main PSU is strong enough you could in theory use extenders to power your DAS from the same PSU but I think there are a few downfalls to doing this. As a result I would suggest getting a redundant PSU (400w+). You can buy special adapters which fit into the 24 pin plug or alternatively you can use a paperclip. Either way what you're doing is making the PSU turn on as soon as it has power from the wall opposed to needing a power button. Sample jumper listing

SAS Controller board: This is the component you need plugged into a PCI slot in your primary NAS box. I bought a LSI SAS9200-16e16 - H3-25140-02B. I didn't need to do any flashing with this and it was plug and play with my NAS box which is running Ubuntu Server. Sample listing

SAS Expander board: This is the board which is connected back to the controller board. Think of the controller board as an outlet and the expander board as a multi-plug type situation. The ebay listing title I got was called HP (487738-001) 3G SAS EXPANDER G6, G7 - FH PCIe-x8 INT/EXT (468406-B21). You will also need a pci power blank to mount this board to and power it in place of a motherboard Sample listing

In theory from what I read it is possible there are alternatives to using one of these but this is the route I wanted to go down. The benefits as I understand them is that you can disconnect your DAS from your NAS in a very clean way. Sample Expander board listing

SFF-8088 SAS to SFF-8088 SAS cable: This is the cable which externally connects your NAS to your DAS. In theory, this is optional as you could go down the route of buying a SFF-8088 to 4xSATA cable. The downside of this however is it doesn't allow the NAS and DAS to be clean separate units IMO. These are very expensive at a lot of outlets but can be had for $14.99 here (I am UK based and even with import taxes this is cheap).

SFF-8087 SAS to 4x SATA cable: This is what connects the data from your DAS drives back to the SAS Expander board. A single cable connects to four drives so I have two of these connected to my controller at the moment. Sample listing

Ok, so in another thread I started earlier today, /u/JDM_WAAAT may have convinced me to build my own server based loosely on his anniversary build. Couple of changes I just want to run by the fine people of this subreddit to make sure I'm not doing something stupid/incompatible. The items on top are straight from the guide, the items on the bottom of the list are the ones I have questions about.

-Single E5-2630 CPU

-GA-7PESH2 Mobo

-16gb DDR3 1600mhz Ram (incl with mobo)

-4TB Hard Drive (incl with mobo)

--------

-** This case, the Corsair Carbide 330r. The mobo should fit in there, I think, since it supports e-atx. If that case works, can I just use the fan that comes with it or will I need to add more cooling beyond the included fan and the CPU cooler?

-** Is this the correct breakout cable? The one linked on the guide is no longer in stock.

-**EVGA 450W 80+ Bronze PSU. The one in the build guide has gone way up in price, so does this one work?

-**Arctic Freezer 12 CPU Cooler. The one in the guide is no longer sold on Amazon, will this one be ok?

-**Operating System - I'd like to use Windows since I'm the most comfortable with it, would there be any issue with running Win10 on a flash drive with this build?

-ANYTHING else that I am missing that would be required for the build?

Thanks!!

My original setup went like this:

I have an IBM m1015 I picked up off of eBay and flashed to IT mode so that the drives are passed straight through and no RAID functionality of the card is used.

One of the two ports from it was connected via an SFF-8087 SAS cable to a double SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 adapter, but you can go single as well.

Then an SFF-8088 SAS Cable ran from the adapter to an external case with an HP SAS Expander in it. There are many, many, other models of expanders but this is what I went with because it has the external SAS SFF-8088 port on it (it's not the only one that has this feature, but it's what I went with, and it makes it so every enclosure doesn't need its own motherboard).

All the ports off the expander then went to the backplanes in the external case and connected the drives to the IBM m1015 through the expander.

Since the 4224 did not have a motherboard at the time I used this thing that's usually used for crypto currency mining to provide power to the expander because that's all it needs from its PCIe interface (many of those other models of expander have a Molex connector in it for power and no PCIe interface at all).

As for daisy chaining SAS enclosures, it can be done, but I haven't gotten that far in my storage adventures yet. I do know that there are enclosures that support it and if I were to expand from where I'm at now it's probably the route I would go. Rolling my own was fun and all but sometimes you just want to plug and play.

I'll concur with A_watcher that eSATA enclosures are crap. Or at least the one I've used was as well.

I think that address the questions that were in the OP as well as posed to others that responded.

I'm ridiculously far from an expert, and my setup has changed a lot since the first way it was set up, but I think it was pretty close and answered those questions.

*Many the guys over at /r/datahoarder are much more knowledgeable in this arena than I am and are another source of information when it comes to storage.

Onboard video chip or an APU.

An APU can save you from having an onboard video chip or using dGPU (and loose the lone PCIe on mITX). But being an APU that means less CPU power. This will be okay for most NAS usage, but when someone wants more then more cores are better. I've always asked here about an 8C/16T mobile APU with very small iGPU for high-end laptops and such applications. These applications either doesn't need a powerful GPU like a server/NAS or it will already have a dGPU like AIO, high-end laptops or SFF systems.

​

Zen actually support ECC, but it's up to the motherboard maker to implement it to fully support it or not.

​

8x SATA ports on mITX can be hard (although they exist). But things can be compact if we go for more server'y like two mini SAS port, each can handle 4x SATA with simple & low cost adapters.

​

These board should really have at least 2x 1GbE or better a 1x 10GbE + 1x 1GbE, or 2x 10GbE for more high-end versions.

For sure dude get after it, I've been having a ball with a stack of 170GB 15K RPM drives that I won from /u/storagereview over on the /r/homelabsales sub, still getting my post together for them like 3 months later lol.

Picked up one of these for the machine housing everything: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C5TG82C as a hot swap rack, it's pretty excellent. Then you just need something like these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC breakout cables and you're ready to rock. Do yourself a favor and get the 1.5 ft. ones though, 1 meter is too damn long.

Have been having so much fun with this project and I don't even store any data on this array lol, just building and breaking and rebuilding RAID configs.

Prebuilt NAS from the likes of Synology is a huge waste of money. The ones that can transcode 1080p media properly cost upwards of $600, and that's without the storage.

For well under $600 (again excluding storage) you can build a kick-ass dual socket Xeon based server that will transcode one 4k stream without breaking a sweat, 2 would be a stretch, but maybe.

• Gigabyte GA-7PESH2 mobo - $175
  
• 2x Xeon E5-2650 V2 - $110
  
• Couple of half-decent coolers - $45
  
• 4U server chassis - $145 often on sale for $100
  
• 16GB 1066 or 1333 ECC REG memory - around $50 on eBay
  
• Decent PSU with dial EPS connectors - $60 on Evga B-stock site
  
• 2x SAS break-out cables if you want to run the SATA HDDs at their full potential speeds - $30
  
• As much SATA storage as you can afford. I usually buy the 8TB WD MyBook external drives when they go on sale, for around $130 each, and shuck them.
  
  You won't even need a GPU. Just make sure your monitor has VGA input for setting up the server, and after the initial setup it can run headless. The passmark score on the 2 CPUs is over 20k which is plenty.
  
  For more information check out https://serverbuilds.net site and Discord channel. Based on their guides I built a very capable server for under $400, and it does extremely well transcoding multiple 1080p streams simultaneously. Besides Plex Media Server it also runs all my automation like NZBget, Sonarr, Radarr, Bazarr, Tautulli, MCEBuddy (for converting 4k to 1080p,) Commskip (for removing commercials from recorded OTA programs,) and is my backup target for 4 Duplicati sources. The CPU load never goes above 50%, so I may throw all my home automation on there as well.

It would really be more beneficial to just shell out 300 buck for an r710. I'm pretty sure you'll save more money in the long term since like you already know, that thing uses a ton of power. Around 300w idle which depending on your electricity that adds up! r710 can idle at a 3rd of that.

If you insist on keeping it, the h200 is a great card and can be crossflashed if needed. You'll just need some breakout cables like these https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

Built my plex server over the last week. Bought the Dell T7500 from this thread.

For those contemplating doing the same there were a few pieces I had to buy along with it:

• Graphics card: https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ATI-Radeon-508279-001-519291-001-109-B40861-21-FirePro-V3700-256MB-PCIe-x16/182341820142?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
  
  
• LSI Card: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-6Gbps-SAS-HBA-w-LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
  
  
• Breakout Cables for LSI Card: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013G4EOEY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  
  
• HDD Caddys: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-390-490-690-T1650-T5400-T7400-T7500-Hard-Drive-Caddy-GJ617-UJ175/352162560444?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
  
  I thought the PC had a VGA port when looking at images, but it wasn't, so I bought a cheap graphics card just to get the UNRAID install working. I'm running it headless.
  
  The server couldn't recognize drives over 2TB, so I bought the LSI card. You could save about half the price and buy it unflashed and the flash it to IT mode yourself. I bout the flashed version to safe myself some time.
  
  The case came with 2 caddys, but I had an SSD and two HDDs. I ordered these. Unless you plan on taking some things apart in the case, you can't really mount harddrives using screws.
  
  Just wanted to post my lessons learned just in case anyone was thinking about buying the Dell t7500.
  
  In saying all of this, I am really happy with the server so far. Just finished setting up most of my dockers in UNRAID this weekend. Have only streamed a couple of things on the local network. Soon I will have someone sharing the library at a different location.

Yes you would put the LSI 9201-16e into a PCIe slot on your current HTPC. Then you would run up to four SAS to SATA cables inside the back of the new case. There will be a big rectangular hole in the back because the tiny power board doesn't have an IO shield (or any IO in the back at all). The cables are a meter long so they should reach just fine.

As for some kind of pre-built all-in-one unit, the only thing that comes to mind is something like the NetApp DS4243. These can be found pretty cheap on eBay but I don't recommend one because they only use server power supplies that are VERY loud. Like jet-engine loud. Seriously, unless you keep both computers in a garage or basement you don't want to actually live anywhere near these things.

If you do have a basement or something though and want to get one, you would still use the LSI 9201-16e but instead use SAS to SAS cables as they have four SAS ports on the back and you would just slide the drives into the front. Everything inside is already connected.

Be aware though that most don't come with HDD trays so you'll have to buy them separately, and the ones that do usually have old 1 TB drives in them already which drives up the price. But even if you think 24 TB extra is good for whatever they're asking, you have to remember they are heavily used in a server environment and likely to die soon, not mention the electricity costs of powering all those drives with 4 server PSUs, and again the NOISE.

Plus there are compatibility issues that even I don't fully understand. You definitely should read up on them before buying one, but really it's not worth the trouble IMO.

I think you're better off going with one of the other options.

EDIT: NetApp DS4243 SAS Disk Shelf Fan Noise

• Buy an H200 on eBay, or a generic LSI version of the same card.
  
• Flash it to IT mode using one of the many, many guides or discussion threads on this topic. Make sure you include a boot ROM or you'll be scratching your head later as to why you were able to install an OS on the server but not boot from it
  
• Stick it in a PCIe slot where it's not blocking anything important, and your cables can reach.
  
• Find out which internal SAS cables are compatible with your card, you need a pair, get two of them. These come in either straight, right, or left angle versions; these all work the same and it's entirely your preference so long as you can cable manage appropriately and close the case. You're most likely going to need one or the other direction of these: https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-Internal-SFF-8087-36Pin-Angle/dp/B01KFEVOPA/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=sas+left+angle&qid=1556060082&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1
  
• Plug both cables into your card ("A" and "B"), and plug the other ends into the corresponding sockets on your backplane (eg, "A" goes into "A")
  
  Glad to help out if you have questions, but the above workflow gets talked about pretty frequently around here, so you'll probably want to do a search. Tons of info about this around this sub.
  
  edit: I don't know if you'll want left- or right-angle SAS cables for an R720. Pretty sure I used right-angle ones in my R720xd. It's confusing as hell which kind you need, but the "right" or "left" angle is from the cord to the connector, not from the end of the connector to the cable. In other words, look at the pictures on Amazon very closely to figure out which you need.

A lot of stuff on eBay is used but I don't have a problem with that as long as the seller has good ratings and will take returns.

I have bought 2 used LSI SAS cards and a few used 10G ethernet cards from eBay sellers and they work fine.

If you see 16i it means 16 internal ports. 4i4e means 4 internal, 4 external and so on.

I'm assuming you want to use consumer SATA drives but these cards are "enterprise" SAS cards. SAS cards will support either SAS or SATA hard drives as long as you get the right cables.

Look at the different connectors here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Attached_SCSI#Connectors

SFF-8087 and 8088 are the most common for internal and external drives but each cable supports 4 drives so you have breakout cables like this

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/r

If you run out of drive bays in the future you could get a card with an external SFF-8088 port and run a cable to a separate box from of drives.

If all you’ll ever do is some streaming, then yeah you don’t need 10g. If you ever want to work on files on the NAS though, then once you go 10g you never want to go back. For example I store, sort and process tend thousands of pictures for my research work (alongside my general data hoarding habits) and my 26TB array acts like a sata ssd. A 1g connection is painfully limiting and slow dealing with that as it’s a bottleneck. It’s good to have the option, which you should thanks to your multi pcie slot board.

Also, the great thing about a NAS build is it doesn’t need to be pretty. You can literally just zip tie everything to a milkcrate or hardboard/pegboard. All you really need is the keep the hard drives from vibrating too much and give them some airflow via spacers and fans.

Eventually I’m going to fabricate my own top loading hard drive bin with wood and backplanes (and felt or rubber acting as spacers) and use an external pointing version of HBA cards to link them up with the host computer.

By the way, to connect an internal HBA like I linked above to sata drives, you’ll want these kind of cables: Cable Matters Internal Mini SAS... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YHS8BS

You can definitely stick with the Fractal series. I did because I couldn't have a loud, unsightly machine setup anywhere in my home. I have my main system w/ 10 Drives + 2 SSDs + 3 NVME drives in an R6. That has a DAS connected with 19 drives inside an R5; 8 stock bays + 3 in 2x5.25 bay adapter + extra 3 drive cage + extra 5 drive cage.

As you are in Europe, you might not even have to pay crazy shipping charges to buy spare drive cages from https://www.fractal-design-shop.de/Define-R5_1. In the US I had to source the extra drive cages from r/hardwareswap but that proved to be easier than I expected. Here is a pic I took before I added the 2nd 5-bay drive cage: https://imgur.com/a/TWL8IB1

Edit: Request for more info...

I have not done a build log as I am not yet "finished" with the build, but it looks like there is sufficient demand for parts info so here it goes:

I have an R6 for my main NAS server loaded with the motherboard, 10 3.5 drives and one SSD. The R5 has two extra drive cages (3 + 5) as well a 2x5.25-to-3x3.5 bay adapter.

The expansion cards I use are:

• 1x LSI 9210-8i with SAS to SATA cables for 8 of the 10 internal drives in the R6. The other 2 + SSD use SATA ports on the motherboard.
  
  
• 1x LSI-9207-8e connected via 8088 cables to two HP SAS expanders powered in the R6 by riser cards which connect to the drives with the same SAS to SATA cables as above.
  
  Additional parts I used:
  
  
• An SFX PSU is important so you can fix the extra drive cages. Don't skimp on this one. You don't need a ton of Watts (I'm using a 600W Gold) but you need quality, you are hooking up thousands of dollars of drives to it!
  
  
• Power splitters: One & Two
  
  
• Power switch to turn on the DAS PSU and reset it any time you need to take the NAS offline (DAS always must be powered on first)
  
• Fan controller for powering fans in the DAS
  
  More inspiration can be found here: https://www.serverbuilds.net/16-bay-das

Yep, forgot to mention that. You need those internal mini-sas cables. You can get them on Amazon. Something like this is perfect and I know for a fact this exact one will fit in terms of length. You will want a right angle bend on one side.

Btw, you can flash the H200/H310 RAID cards to IT mode, which makes it act as an HBA card (allowing you to pass each disk individually allowing you to do software RAID like ZFS).

Well, I only have one "gaming VM" (it has a Radeon HD 6970 and a pair of USB ports passed through, and I've assigned it four vCPU / 6GB RAM), but I'm doing a lot of the rest of your desires. This is going to be a somewhat long post, and I'm not terribly well known for being overly organized with my ramblings, so bear with me... ;)

My host is an HP Z800, and the OS is ESXi 6.0.u2 (with the free license). It has two Xeon X5677's with 32GB of DDR3 (8 4GB Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B, if that happens to matter to you at all). Because of the memory ventilation duct, I had to remove the flimsy heat spreaders. It has two fans that blow directly over both RAM banks, and I've not had any issues without the heat spreaders at all. This is the only physical PC in my house, if you don't count my rarely used laptop (it primarily gets used on the rare occasion that I travel, and on game nights to control the RPG mapping VM).

For my primary datastore (where the VMs live), I have an LSI 9260-8i, with a Mini-SAS to 4 SATA (forward) breakout cable connected to one of these, populated with four PNY CS1131 SSDs configured in a RAID5 array. Within my Windows 10 VM, I ran CrystalDiskMark (with its defaults - I'm not terribly familiar with benchmarking), and this was the result. I suspect the slow write speeds is due to 1) parity calculations and 2) write-back cache being disabled due to my not (currently) having a BBU to connect to my 9260-8i.

At any rate, onto the VM's!

VM1 - "Gaming" / primary usage - Windows 10. As previously noted, it has four vCPUs assigned, 6GB RAM, and 256GB vHDD on the afore mentioned primary datastore. It has a Radeon HD 6970 and a pair of the host USB ports attached via 'pcipassthrough'. As the host lives in an electronics / networking closet in my spare bedroom, I use some Cables2Go RapidRun digital cabling (the specific part numbers I used are now discontinued) to bring the HDMI signal from that space to a spot on one of my living room walls, where the monitor is mounted. I used a cheap USB<->Cat5 extender to bring a USB port out to a cheap USB hub, to which is connected the Logitech universal receiver for my keyboard / mouse, and a crappy USB 'sound card' (which is only used for its MIC input). Before you ask, no, I don't notice any input / display lag with the 50' cabling between my keyboard / monitor / mouse.

VM2 - Media server, "nas" - Windows Home Server 2011. This VM also has four vCPUs assigned, along with 6GB of RAM, but only a 160GB HDD (the minimum WHS2011 required for installation). This VM has the onboard Intel six port SAS/SATA controller attached, along with a USB3 PCIe controller. I have an 4-in-1 IcyDock (different model to the one I linked previously, but very similar build), in which live three Samsung / Seagate 2TB 2.5" HDDs. These are controlled / presented to the OS by StableBit's DrivePool. All of my media / other data are stored on this pool. As this VM also handles my media services, it has Plex Media Server, Sonarr, and sabnzbd installed. All downloads / unpacks / media rename / etc happens on the DrivePool, since I don't care how long those operations take (I'm the only one that accesses my media).

VM3 - RPG mapping - Windows 7 - This VM is very basic : two vCPUs and 2GB RAM. It has a Radeon HD 7470 attached, which is connected via a 50' RapidRun analog (yellow, also discontinued) VGA cable. This VM is only powered on / used when I have an RPG group at my house.

All three VMs have Chrome Remote Desktop installed so I can access them from anywhere. The media / RPG VM's are exclusively controlled via this method.

I have a Nexus Player installed at both of my TVs. Each has the Plex app installed so I can watch whatever is on the server.

If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask. :)

FWIW, it totally depends on how budget sensitive you are. Based on the hardware you're talking about, it sounds like budget matters quite a bit.

In the USA, you can pick up a Dell H200 or H310 PERC card for ~$30, get the appropriate SAS to 4 SATA breakout cables for under $10 each, and flash the card into IT mode. If you want to get fancy, you can point a fan at the chipset heatsink to account for lower airflow in most cases in that area (I used a PCI slot cover-type fan adapter slow shipped from china and a single 92mm fan I had around). It's an extremely popular way to get a few more ports into your datahorder build and the card is well supported by most software. I operate it in pass-through, so I have no idea if you should use it for RAID or not.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/47MCV-047MCV-342-0663-DELL-PERC-H200-6Gb-s-PCI-e-SAS-SATA-Raid-Controller/253307058926

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PERC-H310-8-Port-6Gb-s-SAS-Adapter-RAID-Controller-HV52W-Replaces-Perc-H200/192120843762

https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/

https://tylermade.net/2017/06/27/how-to-crossflash-perc-h310-to-it-mode-lsi-9211-8i-firmware-hba-for-freenas-unraid/

https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-SFF-8087-Female-Controller-Backplane/dp/B013G4EOEY/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N3T1GJP

One of my debian setups is still in an old desktop case too :)
I run this raid card: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-HV52W-RAID-CONTROLLER-PERC-H310-6GB-S-PCI-E-2-0-X8-0HV52W-/201657131656
I flashed mine to be in IT mode so that it doesn't act like a RAID card anymore, just acts like a bunch of lonely SATA ports: https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/ Help with this can be sought in the #DataHoarder IRC room, there are a few of us there who have done this on a few different models of cards now.
Got 2 of these cables so I can slap 8 disks in that sucker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0
Then I installed ZFS as my filesystem and run my disks in a glorious 50TB array: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Debian
I even slapped an SSD off a mobo SATA channel as a caching disk. Happy building! :)

Board and CPU combo is good, enough single thread performance for the Minecraft server, enough multi thread for transcoding 3-4 1080p streams in Plex. (Rule of thumb is 2K passmark score per 10mb/s of video)

The board is just standard ATX size. It does only have 6 SATA ports, so you will need buy an HBA card to add more ports, or use fewer storage devices.

https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002RL8I7M

That card can handle 8 drives total, 4 per cable.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU Cooler | ARCTIC Freezer 34 CO CPU Cooler | $31.95 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $64.99 @ Newegg
Video Card | Zotac GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card | $84.99 @ Newegg
Case | Antec Three Hundred Two ATX Mid Tower Case | $94.58 @ Walmart
Power Supply | SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply | $79.90 @ Amazon
Case Fan | ARCTIC ACFAN00119A 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan | $8.52 @ Amazon
Case Fan | ARCTIC ACFAN00119A 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan | $8.52 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $373.45
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-26 08:45 EDT-0400 |

CPU cooler to keep the CPU quiet. Bit of overclocking headroom if you want the extra performance. Compatible RAM. Basic GPU that will be able to handle any 4K 60Hz HEVC video decoding. Case with tons of storage room. Efficient power supply for low noise, and a long warranty. Extra 120mm fans for front intakes, to keep the storage cool.

Sure:

The raid raid is a Dell H200 (same as an LSI-9211 8i, but I could get the dell cheaper) I found it on eBay for ~ $30 shipped.

I used something like these sas breakout cables. I have two because it made the internal cable management much easier. Note that the T20 (probably the T30 too) needs to have the 90 degree version so that the two cables attached to the bottom drive cage don't need to be bent really tight to put the case lid back on. But if you use the 90 on the top drives, then the connector angles up towards the top of the case and needs to be looped back down. I found it much cleaner looking to just use separate cables and leave 2 sata breakout connectors unused and tuck them away.

You should look into the sleeved mini-sas to sata breakout cables (http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88). They're not too expensive and they look much better than the bright red cables you get with your card (looks like a LSI 9260-4i?). If so, I might have an extra bbu or cachevault I can send your way so you won't have to disable the BBU requirement to enable writeback caching. Also, if it is a LSI card, they have a tendancy to run pretty warm so make sure you're cooling it enough

Oh sweet, thanks.

After I read your comment I went back and looked at Amazon again - they have the SATA data and power cables here. Hopefully these work with the H310. I can't find any real information on how the SAS to SATA cables work. I keep reading about "forward" and "reserve" and "breakout" cables, but I'm not clear on what any of those are. I'm mildly computer savvy, but this is my first foray into RAID controllers.

Anyway, enough of that - thanks much for your help!

I'm not familiar with the Dell T310, but I have a Dell R510 server. I too swapped the Perc 6i for a H700, but I 'm working with a drive backplane. I had to swap the cables for Internal Mini SAS to Mini SAS cables.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011W2F626/

I was starting fresh, so I don't know if the RAID settings will carry over. Safety first, better back up all your data!!

I've just built a FreeNAS box on a Dell T310. Xeon 2.4Ghz x3430, 8GB. 4x3.5" bays, with 2x5.25" bays you can do what you like with. I put two of these to give me 6x3.5" and 4x2.5" bays. There are 6 onboard SATA ports, so I'm using a Dell H200 card for the 3.5" drives and my 2 SSDs with 8087 to 4xSATA cables. It runs idle at about 80w, and kicks up to 120w when it's transcoding a Plex 1080p stream.

You could use whatever hypervisor you like on it.

It doesn't take just any mishmash of RAM though, so either find one with 16+ installed already, or be ready to shell out a bit more to get yourself to the maximum of 32GB.

The Dell T320 is a great looking box too, and newer, with 8x3.5" bays, bigger RAM capacity, etc.

Assuming you have PCI express 3 in your computer expansion slots, Get a card like this:

LSI Logic SAS 9207-8i Storage Controller LSI00301 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085FT2JC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_xQ-jDbVZ3R30V

It will feed data connections to 8 sata drives all by itself.

It has 2 sff-8087 ports. Then get the special 'forward breakout' cable. Well two really. One end goes into the sff-8087 port and then it splits out into four sata data cables. Which go into the hard drives of course.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_2T-jDbHFP0FHC

The card can support hardware raid, but fewer and fewer folks do that. After all, hardware raid usually requires identical drives, and us folks at home often have a motley collection of drives of various sizes, speeds, and geometries. So software raid it is. In linux, folks often use freenas or unraid. In windows 10 you can use something called 'storage spaces'. Using raid will allow you to treat all those drives like one device... And have some tolerance for failure (which happens with so many)

Next question.. does your case have room? Do you have enough power connectors?

Yes, you will need new cables. I also started with a perc6i and the existing cables didn't fit my h200 - it has a different connector. I got a lot of info from this youtube video: https://youtu.be/Lj_FfdPfYM4. The guy has a ton of other helpful videos and even sells the preflashed cards (though, you do pay a premium over doing it yourself).

I had a hard time finding the exact cables I needed (the youtube video mentions what you need). I ended up with a pair that are a bit longer than needed and I just hid the extra slack in the case. It ended up pretty fine and saved me some money/time trying to find the exact cable. Here is what I got off Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CKXFKHT/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_uQXSDbRECY2G1

Yes. As you noted, you can basically have an HBA card point inside or outside the case.

In my experience, 4U all in one 24/28 hotswap bay cases are stupid long and heavy, and frankly an unforgiving design for home use. Those external HBA cards can potentially let you have a short/thin computer case, and stick all your drives in a separate enclosure with their own power supply and/or backplanes. Typically in such a setup the drives are plugged into an Expander Card that could just be powered by one of these. Then you can move things around and easily and all you need to plug and unplug are the external cables without reconnecting dozens of drives.

There are a load of ways you can go about things as long as you do your research and triple check that things are going to work the way you expect them to.

​

For now you most likely just want a plain old internal HBA, even if you decide to redesign your enitre setup you'll find a use for it somewhere. Search ebay "Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9211-8i" and you should see plenty of options for "IT firmware" pre-flashed cards for ~$55. Note that these cards are generally intended for cases with forced air, so it's highly recommended to put a fan over the heatsink on them to prevent problems that can sometimes happen.

I use one of These. Took off the heat sink, cleaned the old paste of, drilled two holes in the corners, put the heatsink back on with some of my spare kryonaut, and used twist ties to mount the fan to the heatsink. No issues for over a year nor would I expect any.

​

If you want to connect sata SSD's directly to the HBA, you need one of these cables, just make sure you know what length of cable you need, and if getting a right angled version is prudent before ordering. If you had disks connected to a backplane that feature an SAS connection, you could use one of these. Some motherboards like the asrock x399 taichi, supermicro boards, and an increasing amount of others now feature a "U.2" port that can be seen here. These U.2 ports (to my current understanding, I could be mistaken) should not be expected to have an actual SAS controller implemented and the ability to control SAS drives unless they explicity state that as being possible, but these ports should support sata disks using the breakout cables like the one here.

Use your on-board SATA controller for the drive(s) where the VMs will be stored. I have two SSDs in mine since I have a dozen VMs. These drives will show up in the ESXi storage module.

For "raw access" you will need a separate drive controller (aka HBA=host bus adapter) for the disks you want Xpenology to use for its storage pool. This separate drive controller will show up in ESXi and you enable "passthrough" in the hardware configuration screen. After you do this, the separate drive controller can be added during configuration of the XPE VM as an additional "PCI Device" and all drives connected to this controller will show up in XPE after DSM boots. ESXi will have no visibility to these drives at all. Configured this way the drives behave as if they were in an actual Synology box.

There are caveats however since not all drive controllers can be passed and not all seem to be compatible with Jun's bootloader. There are various LSI models that most people use, with 9211-8i being one of the more popular ones. There are third party cards (such as Dell and IBM) that are the same as the 9211-8i and can use its firmware. Secondly, the card needs to be flashed from IR mode to IT mode which basically disables the built-in RAID function and presents the drives as a JBOD. Here is one example of how to flash an LSI 9211-8i into IT mode: https://nguvu.org/freenas/Convert-LSI-HBA-card-to-IT-mode/

You can also purchase preflashed cards on ebay. Do a search for "9211 it mode" and you'll find many listed. You should be able to grab one for $35-40. I personally use a Dell H310.

The 9211-8i has two SFF-8087 ports, each which supports 4 drives. Use a cable like this which has a standard SATA connector: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B018YHS8BS

Go here for info on how to configure XPE on ESXi: https://xpenology.com/forum/forum/50-dsm-6x/

There are also many Youtube videos available that shows how to configure XPE in ESXi.

Side note: Now that I've done some searches on RDM, I recall that my issue was that RDM was greyed out as an option for me. Maybe it will work fine for you, but the passthrough method is the recommended way. It's also used for other platforms like FreeNAS and unRAID.

> are there any potentially slightly older and used RAID controller that can be had for cheap (like <$50), that will let me attach 5, maybe 6 drives?

Yes, but normally RAID requires empty drives so you'd have to use something like drivepool instead if you want to keep your data intact.

> Ive come across the Dell PERC H700

H700 isn't a bad card but if you can do an H300, you can flash it into IT mode (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-IT-mode-Adapter-8-Port-6Gb-s-SAS-SATA-Raid-Card-9211-8i-P20-IT/192642240732?hash=item2cda5f50dc:g:EE0AAOSwNgNbiBGM:rk:1:pf:0) and just use Mini-SAS to SATA cables (https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC). Each cable will allow you plug in 4 drives.

That 9211 is like the gold standard. You shouldn’t have to flash to IT mode, but you do want to upgrade the firmware (which accomplishes the same thing). The real ones are trivial to flash, versus like an H200, so I wouldn’t sweat that.

If you want the “modern” version, the LSI-9207-8i has the most recent chipset.

You can get them new, and quite a bit cheaper, on eBay .

Then you just need a pair of breakout cables

By machine do you mean another physical box? Because you'll need somewhere to put those disks. A popular solution is Dell PowerVault, connected to your R720 with an HBA with external ports. If you had a spare case and power supply, you could also get some breakout cables from the external SAS ports to SATA. If you only need a few SATA disks a simple enclosure like this Rosewill metal cage would work. Just sit it outside the cage somewhere and power the drives.

I've done this with a spare power supply and a "power supply testing switch" like this one here.

EDIT: Here's a link to the SFF-8088 to SATA cable which will connect an external HBA like the Dell H200e directly to SATA drives.

Not too worried about which type of RAID, long as it supports the drives at full throughput. The 9211-8i looks pretty nice.

Would this work as a breakout cable for the drives?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC

Assume running FreeNAS as a VM with card passed through so it can see individual drives?

H200 flashed in to IT mode is a solid route. I've flashed a few easily using the following: https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/

I will note, I had to do the actual flash from another box, never was able to get my r710 to play nice with the flash process...

Once flashed, you will likely need to put the card in one of the other PCIE slots and not the existing storage slot. You will also need different cables... here are the cables I've using: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

SFF8087 (mini SAS) is basically four SAS/SATA ports in one connector. You can even get breakout cables to split them out into 4 individual connectors. You would need (and that backplane has) 6 ports/cables to access 24 drives. The 3 and 4 port references you saw were likely for the 12 and 16 drive variants of that backplane.

The stock fans are 80mm, and you can replace them with any 80mm fans with zero modifications. Some folks remove the fan wall and use three 120mm fans (they fit pretty well), but honestly, 80mm fans move enough air for the drives themselves.

WD Reds, currently 1 4TB and 2 3TB installed, 3 more 4TB I haven't moved over yet until I can get it working.

​

Yes they worked previously on this card when the card was installed in an old 2500K desktop. Prior to this switch they were in a Rackable 24 bay chasis connected with external SAS cable to a SAS9200-8e H3-2560-02G.

​

Had to purchase new mini SAS cables for this as I didnt have any https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

​

TLDR only new components to this setup are the R720 and the mini SAS cables, everything else was previously working on another build.

LSI LOGIC SAS 9207-8i Storage Controller LSI00301


Mini-SAS to 4x SATA Forward Breakout Cable


I picked up one of these cards and the breakout cables and it handles 8TB drives, easy to install. Works great

I've used pcie sata expanders with mixed success, sometimes the hard drives would disappear and reappear on a reboot, you definitely don't want that to happen on a raid setup. An HBA flashed to IT mode with breakout cables works really well, I use it in my server and it is rock solid.

HBA

Cable

The cable you linked is a SFF-8087-SFF-8087, but I thought the R710 backplane was SFF-8484? I would need something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Internal-mini-SAS-S510-18N/dp/B00193MCN0

Either way, I don't think it really matters. The only drives in the R710s will be two 146GB 10k RPM drives in RAID 1 as the boot device, which can be done through the PERC6/i that they ship with. The H200 will just interface with the DAS externally (Might as well just get the H200E, which is $10 more instead of futzing with adapters.) This also means I don't have to worry about the storage PCIe slot compatibility.

USB3 is a bit lacking today for what it is but with thunderbolt slowly overwriting the USB3 space its something to watch. Personally the USB 3 spec is a little too driver dependent and i've had issues with windows devices dropping the storage under high system load. I would recommend using external SAS with breakout to sata as a 'build your own'. Also works out cheaper though lacks the prettyness

If you have the space in your case you could by a PCIe HBA with an external SAS port https://www.amazon.com/DUAL-SFF-8088-External-Controller-SAS3801E/dp/B00MY5M6KG and then use an old case without a motherboard or anything else and buy a SAS port expander https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-16-Channel-Port-Multiplier-Rocket-EJ340/dp/B00DWV4SKM with SAS to SATA cable adapters https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XBE4DGO/ref=psdc_6795231011_t2_B012BPLYJC .

For the small price of about $150USD you can have an external case with 16 drives with better performance than USB 3

I second this also. I have 4 LSI 9211-8i's and I love them. The only issue I have is that my case needs 5 to be able to use all the bays, but the LSI BIOS will only let me use 4 cards. I paid ~$100 per card, well worth every penny. [LSI 9211-8i] (http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-Internal-SATA-SAS-PCI-e-RAID-Controller-Card-SAS9211-8i-8-PORT-HBA-/111834008063?hash=item1a09d389ff:g:YhoAAOSwrklVEHVu), [Mini-SAS to Sata Cable] (http://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters%C2%AE-Mini-SAS-Forward-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451574103&sr=8-2&keywords=mini+sas+to+sata)

You've been gracious, please double check my setup for me?

• Dell Studio XPS 9100
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JZDUHQ/?coliid=I37PVAE7FH82JM&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YHS8BS/?coliid=I3IEENMIJPIFYW&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EHBERSE/?coliid=INZLNO6VWT4CM&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

Here was my solution, which is working great:

Controller

Cable

I looked closer at our chassis setup and it is 4x 5 slot boards, so I'm not actually sure what protocol they run because SAS breakouts should max at 4. We're definitely proprietary compared to the options I am seeing online.

Closest equivalent commercially available part would be something like https://www.amazon.com/Mini-SAS-SFF-8087-Inch-Frame/dp/B00M36C2KK which effectively breaks out an internal sas port to 4x sas/sata interfaces. Looking online the DL320 should have an unused onboard port.

Alternatively https://www.amazon.com/Aplicata-Quad-NVMe-PCIe-Adapter/dp/B01MTU75X4 or https://www.aliexpress.com/item/NEW-The-adapter-card-PCI-E-16X-TO-4P-NVMe-SSD-Support-RAIDO-PCI-E-16X/32951136605.html will let you run NVME directly off the PCIE slot assuming there isn't some other expansion already there.

So in a dl320 you could probably do one of each so long as you have physical space left and you don't run out of power.

Forgot one other option, which assumes OP can find power and mounting points on their own. https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

So, in the server world, they're obviously not using SATA for high-density storage. One solution they use is SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). There are many different types of SAS ports, the most common in the homelab community (and with specific types of servers) being the SFF-8087 connector (mini-SAS) for internal storage. HBAs / RAID controller cards usually have 2 SAS connectors on them. They can be flashed (or bought pre-flashed) to what's called IT mode which allows them to operate as JBOD (Just a bunch of disks). Something like this. If you shop around a bit you can find better deals on used ones (which you shouldn't be afraid to buy, these things are rugged as hell and kept in nice server environments). You can then pair this with one of two cables, Mini-SAS 8087 to SATA or Mini-SAS 8087 to SFF-8482. If you by the latter of the two, it will work with any SATA drive you have as well, with the added compatibility for SAS drives (2 in 1!). SAS drives sometimes come in good deals on ebay @ 4TB for $50 so I'd go with the latter if you ever feel like you want bulk storage for cheap. No real harm in it.

I was just recently/currently in the same boat. I purchased a used r710 to make into a plex server. I bought a H310 on ebay (paid a premium and bought a preflashed IT version so I wouldn't have to mess around doing it myself). I guess I don't have any real reason I bought the H310 over the H200, from what I read they both will work as long as they are flashed into IT mode. I just had to buy new cables and install them. I have only tried it with a 1 TB hard drive in unraid and it seemed to work great. Ultimately I went with unraid simply because I wanted to be able to add drives easily as my library grew and have a parity drive- both of which unraid does.

Ok yeah they looked fine just wanted to make sure they were the right connectors https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-SFF-8087-Female-Controller-Backplane/dp/B013G4EOEY/ref=mp_s_a_1_20?keywords=sata%2Bto%2Bsas&qid=1555191162&s=gateway&sr=8-20&th=1&psc=1

You can get SAS->SATA "fan" cables (example) to use this with regular SATA drives, like if you were building a large NAS array in a huge PC case. This would support up to 24 SATA drives off a single controller.

Since doing software RAID, I'd just go super simple and just get something like this and SFF-8643 to 4 x SATA cable:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAEGB69S8115&cm_re=M.2_to_SAS-_-9SIAEGB69S8115-_-Product

https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-Internal-Mini-SFF-8643-Host/dp/B01B1IVEM2/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_147_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=WKPKCWCJ47NY6B056MEA

I'm not well versed in cheap enterprise HBA's you could use. This is my ultimate choice though, if I was going to splurge: https://www.amazon.com/High-Point-SSD7120-dedicated-Controller/dp/B0774WLSH4

--I use an old quad-core i3 laptop with a 2-port eSATA Expresscard to connect the 4-bay Probox. Can connect it with a USB3 Expresscard as well, but I don't trust that configuration. I was also able to connect it to an older motherboard that had SATA port expansion with an internal-to-external SATA cable.

​

3FT eSATA to SATA male to male M/M Shielded Extender Extension HDD Cable 6Gbps

​

--If I need quicker scrub times, I can take the drives and put them in a 5-bay Sans Digital HDDRACK5 with a PC power supply, and hook them up to one of my SAS cards in the tower server I had built from Fry's a few years ago. It's LSI2008 with the cables routed externally.

​

Cable: External Mini SAS 26pin (SFF-8088) Male to 4x 7Pin Sata Cable

Cards: SAS9200-8E 8PORT Ext 6GB Sata+sas Pcie 2.0

Fan card: Titan Adjustable Dual Fan PCI Slot VGA Cooler (TTC-SC07TZ)

​

--Sorry for the late reply, BTW - haven't checked the forum for a few days.

Wow, for being Data Hoarders, almost no one here has any clue about SAS.

SAS controllers will work with both SAS and SATA drives.

SATA controlles will only work with SATA drives.

SAS drives have twice the data connections of SATA drives. This is for dual path. This is very commonly used in data paths for failover and load balancing.

If the backplane you have, has SAS connectors for the drives but only SATA connections on the back, it will depend on what kind of drive you put in it will dictate what kind of controller you can use.

If you put in SATA drives, you can use a SATA controller. SATA drives will plug in and work fine in this case.

If you put in SAS drives, you need a SAS controller. Yes that will work in this case, but you lose the dual data path feature. It'll work fine, you just lose one of the bigger SAS features.

If you MIX SAS and SATA drives, you need a SAS controller. Some controllers allow mixing, some do not.

To work with your setup, you'll need a cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88 This will go from 8087 to SATA connectors.

I would suggest an LSI 9211-8i flashed to what is known as IT mode. This mode does not use any RAID and passes the disks directly to the operating system. The 9211-8i has 2 internal SFF-8087 SAS ports. SAS can support SAS as well as SATA. You can buy a breakout cable like this one which has 4 SATA connectors on it.

Here's a link to the 9211-8i itself, already flashed to IT mode. You can flash IT mode yourself, it is just a little "involved".

LSI 9211-8I 8PORT Int 6GB Sata+sas Pcie 2.0

Get a card like this and you can add plenty of drives. Note: you can find these much cheaper on eBay and often times will include a couple sas-to-4-sata adapter cables Also bare in mind they come in two flavors. One is raid-controller mode and the second is a simple expansion. But you can change that depending on how you plan to use it.

Consider a cheap SSD for your boot drive. Not necessary considering your needs but booting from an HDD gives me a migraine :)

Try an LSI raid controller https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002RL8I7M/ref=sr_1_2?crid=P5PBSXR61CYV&keywords=lsi+raid+controller&qid=1569558454&sprefix=lsi%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-2

You will also need these https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=pd_bxgy_147_img_2/136-5105212-8833038?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B012BPLYJC&pd_rd_r=89475179-7e61-4fe7-915a-198096ed13b8&pd_rd_w=QQkz9&pd_rd_wg=B6Ezg&pf_rd_p=479b6a22-70ae-47a0-9700-731033f96ce8&pf_rd_r=0A6F6Y69MVNJQX5XC257&psc=1&refRID=0A6F6Y69MVNJQX5XC257

Be sure to back up the data on your current raid because they will get formatted. After installing it you will see different boot process from the card when starting up your computer. It should tell you to hit ctrl-h (I think). After that just read carefully, choose your hard drives that you want to combine and choose the raid you want. After that boot your computer normally and install the software I linked below. Be sure to extract it before installing and use the complete installation. It might give you a login screen for the software. It will request your window's login credentials. I was wary of it at first too but its what it wants. My memory is a bit fuzzy. But I believe this is where you finish setting up the raid for windows to be able to format it.

I'm using an LSI Logic SAS9260-4I for raid 6. The only issue I've had with it is while I was installing windows I had to disconnect it. But once that was done once I reconnected it and moved on like normal.

edit: Went to the website for you and searched for the card's software management https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/12354760 that should be it.

edit2: added more information.

In general, SAS ports should be compatible with SATA. I would want to know more about your server (model/version/specs) to say 100% certain, but I'm like 98% certain that the SAS ports on your motherboard should work given the correct cables.

However, if the server from work is using SAS hot swap bays or other hardware between the HBA (SAS ports) and the drives it may not be as straight forward.

For my SATA card I use this cable and since I have a couple drives connecting through onboard SATA ports I use a matching cable. I like these because the cables are thin and pliable so it is easy to maneuver them around inside the computer and don't take up a ton of space.

Fantastic! I'll probably just buy the LSI SAS card you listed along with this cable then.

Most of my confusion stemmed from motherboards having "SAS support", but I'm assuming that's if you are hooking up directly to the motherboard opposed to a PCIE controller?

Thanks for the in depth information!

>Do I just start buying a bunch of hard drives?

Pretty much yes. Before doing that though, figure out what your current hardware can handle (especially if you go hardware RAID - older RAID adapters don't work with drives greater then 2TB). If you're going software RAID or something else, HDD size is generally a non issue - just get the biggest you can afford.

>If so, how do I organize / connect them all?

Either straight to the motherboard (for "small" setups, or non-raid setups) or buy a RAID adapter (the IBM m1015 is popular) for about $115 USD and then buy SFF8087 to SATA expanders for about $20 USD each - this setup will allow you to connect 8 SATA drives to this card in a RAID 0, 1, 10 OR you can flash it to be an HBA also know as IT mode (to allow for JBOD + software RAID) which is what people generally buy these particular cards for.

Then it's just a matter of buying the drives and making sure they all physically fit in your computer case (tower, 1/2/3/4u rack server).

>Is there anything wrong with using an old Mac instead of Linux/Windows?

I'm not aware of any native Mac support for the above programs (only because I never bothered looking as I don't own any Macs) but I wouldn't be surprised if the programs that run via Python (Couchpotato & Sickrage come to mind) work just fine, but others I really don't know.

Generally people use some flavor of Linux (I'm using CentOS 7 myself - though Debian and it's offshoots (like Ubuntu) seems to be more popular in my opinion), Windows, or FreeBSD.

Again, go with what you're comfortable with - there's no wrong OS to run when you're starting out and just getting the hang of things (despite what some die hards will tell you).

Google should tell you if the above programs run on a Mac though.

Thanks for the reply,

so i need to buy this cable only 2 cables which goes from the h200 to the SAS backpane correct? and the other cables that go to the Board i would remove it correct?

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-Mini-SAS/dp/B011W2F626/

​

Thank you

I'm not sure what kind of RAID card you're going to end up with but if it's the norm around here you'll likely want one of these and then 3 of these little guys.

You could probably find those cheaper somewhere else but that would work fine. Then you'd just need one SATA power connector from your PSU and it looks like it would power all 3.

https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/ I recommend having one of these on hand and https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

Maybe get some of these sorts of SATA cables would make it easier - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4PCS-Free-Shipping-DIY-Black-sata-3-SATA-III-3-Data-Cable-Dual-channel-aluminum-foil/1582341251.html


Or get a SATA controller that uses Mini-SAS to SATA cables and get these - https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC


Would make running separate SATA cables a bit easier and more manageable

>My only gripe it's lacking in SATA III ports. Any tweeks to meet my above goals would be greatly appreciated.

Flash an LSI (or similar branded) SAS raid controller and you'll get 8 sata 3 ports at your disposal (note requires SAS - 4 sata cables [eg. this]). You get ex server ones quite cheap. /r/homelab could probably point you at which ones are worth getting now, I've not looked into it since buying my own 6 years ago.

So I just realized the P812 has the Mini SAS on the board whereas the P800 has the larger SAS ports on the board. Therefore, you'll actually need these breakout cables.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

If you get two of those, you attach them to the internal ports and then that gives you 8 total internal drives. If you needed more than that, then you would get the SAS Expander, run SAS cables from the P812 to the SAS expander, and then use more of those breakout cables on the SAS expander to get more internal drives.

I haven't used the SAS expander for HP so I am not sure how well it works or what additional configuration you will need.

You would need those other cables I listed if you were going to use the P800, but I wouldn't recommend it since that card only supports up to 2TB drives where the P812 supports MUCH larger drives and up to 108 total drives (if you really wanted to).

You could get a SAS raidcard and cables all for ~$27 on amazon. that would give you 8 ports with those cables and if you wanted you could use a SAS expander cable to get more.

OR

Get a $20 4 port SATA raidcard and go with that.

FYI you can plug a SATA hard drive into a SAS raidcard just not the other way around just like how you can fit a small box inside a bix box but not the other way around.

My reccomendation would be to get the SAS raidcard so you have a little expansion room if you want more drives.

You're correct. 6/i is slow, limited to drives 2TB or smaller, and doesn't have true IT mode. Its a good card to keep if (1) you don't care about software RAID, and (2) have spinners 2TB or less.

The H200 is a great card. You can leave it in IR mode if you want hardware RAID or flash IT mode if you want software RAID. Will work with any drive.

You'll need new cables. These are the right ones for an LFF model.

You could white box it, but the Xeon CPU brand new is gonna be at least $200.

I went with a TS140. Something like this

Spend another couple hundred on ram Example ram here and an M1015 + breakout cables for passthrough to freenas. (That's what I do.)

EDIT

I'd suggest using ECC memory, especially with a ZFS file system.

CableCreation Internal Mini SAS SFF-8087 to Right Angle SFF-8087 Cord, Internal Mini SAS to Mini SAS Cable, Compatible with RAID or PCI Express Controller, 2.5FT /0.75M https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Y0sKDbFEJ76W1

These are the exact cables I bought (buy 2) for my R710 II LFF to connect my H200 and it works perfectly.

Something like this, but bought on eBay for cheaper and flashed to IT mode to just "passthrough" the drives to the OS and not do any management by itself.

And a couple of these to connect your hard drives. :)

I'm going to give this one a whirl, hopefully there isn't some issue with my motherboard preventing it from working. Got a H310 pre-flashed off ebay and ordered two of these and let's hope this fixes all my issues.

I tried to put another 8tb in my server this morning and it wouldn't work even on a mb port. Not sure what's up.

You didn't ask me, but you could get a Lenovo SA120, LSI 9200-8e, and the appropriate cable for under $300 – leaving some cash for Lenovo drive trays.

(Note also that none of these parts are necessarily ideal for you; for example, the MSA60 costs less and includes trays but has its own drawbacks. It's hard to say without knowing requirements.)

You can pick up sas cables that work with the h700 from Amazon, you don't necessarily need the dell ones.

I got two of these ( linky ) and they work just fine, and fit the LFF backplane.

This depends on the controller you are using. The backplane uses SAS 8087 connectors. If you are using a H700 your other end would SAS 8087. If it's a Perc 6/i it would be SAS 8484.

For perc 6/i, get something like this: Just make certain to take measurements that it will be long enough.
https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Internal-mini-SAS-S510-18N/dp/B00193MCN0?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

H700 internal. Again take measurements:
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Feet/dp/B011W2F626/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1464821930&sr=1-4&keywords=sas+8087

if you want to go ghetto-cheap ...
maybe a lsi card that has internal sas connectors (SFF8087) .
a cable like https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88
do something like this guy
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/7crrhv/so_i_took_my_ghetto_homelab_and_made_a_homemade/
with the 5 in 3 adapters, and a psu, and rig up some LFF drives.
or maybe repurpose a desktpo case that holds 8+ internal hdd's, strip the guts etc.

I don't think that's the right cable (though it might work). For my H700->R710 backplane, I needed right-angle cables that looked like this (these are way too short though):

https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-Internal-SFF-8087-36Pin-Right/dp/B01KFEVQ4E

H310 and H700 should use the same cables

Dell PN: P110M is what I ordered, which you need two. And they worked perfectly in my R710 to go from an H700 to the 3.5" backplane. I mentioned this before, and someone said those might be too short, but it's what I ordered and they worked.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-POWEREDGE-R710-PERC-H700-H200-6GBPS-SAS-SATA-RAID-CABLE-3-5-SERVER-P110M-/262926379196?hash=item3d37a228bc:g:AV0AAOSw9GhYeZ-2

Edit: oops, that one is from China too. But that's at least the right Dell Part Number to search for.

I've ordered four of these and they are working excellent. H200 with a Rosewill 4500 chassis, SM board.

I have a server motherboard with SAS -> SATA ports so I can plug in one of these and get 4x SATA ports from one port. For power, I use these power splitters that allow me to neatly add power to a column of HDDs. I run one of the splitters per power line from the PSU. Before I had a server motherboard, I used this PCIE SATA card.

I was looking at those pc-pitstop JBOD boxes. You'll save a bit of cash ($100 for the 8-disk model) by buying the one where you have to screw the disks into the trays. Unless you really need to swap them that quickly.

As for the HBA, something with an LSI2008 chip is probably a good choice - found one (Dell-branded) as low as $65 on ebay.

You'll also need to buy two SAS 8088-8088 cables - $25 for 2m cable on Amazon. It's about another $300 for the models that have a SAS expander to run more drives using a single cable.

What cable are you using to connect the drive to controller? I believe you need something like this.

Edit - If cards BIOS is booting then it's not related to the PCIe slot.

[Mini SAS Cable Connector SATA Power, Creation Internal Mini SAS 36pin SFF-8087 to (4) 29pin SFF-8482 connectors with SATA Power,3.3FT] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4FEGG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_7kDSCbS994F6V)

Here's a trustworthy cable to try: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B018YHS8BS?th=1

I tried the amazon ones then a left and right set from eBay. They were all wrong. I just got straight ones in the end.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01KFEVQ4E?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

It’s amazon.ca I hope that’s ok.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NX1YCC/ref=psdc_6795231011_t3_B00OYB6P7I
or
https://www.amazon.com/High-Point-Internal-Mini-SAS-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88/ref=sr_1_94?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537927377&sr=1-94
or
https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-CBL-0388L-Mini-SAS-SFF-8087-Sidebands/dp/B00OYB6P7I/ref=sr_1_103?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537927463&sr=1-103

But if I had the ones he has, I would just play it by ear. They might work out fine.

I recently put in an LSI card to attach 8 HDD's into my array (I have 5 SSD's attached making up my cache - not ideal, but I had the parts so... ;-). Worked out of the box. no flashing. No updates. I ordered mine from Amazon.com. Was $75, but I did not want to risk it, as this is my server (worth the $25 to me for simple piece of mind).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085FT2JC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Combined that with the splitter cables (I used these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CKX6HVV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) and I have had 0 issues.

It was by far the most highly recommended card, and I did not want to deal with a bunch of random issues to save $25 dollars.

Take a decent decommissioned server or PC, throw a couple of $50-100 PCIe SAS controller cards in and connect drives using a few of these $13 cables, then wipe away. You're going to want a pretty beefy power supply.

I have bought this cable which should be a forward breakout https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have tried to plug it in another port on the HBA, no luck either.
Yes, all drives have SATA power and SATA data and I can hear/feel the spinning.

This situation is how I got started with FreeNAS. I started with 3 drives in a standard ATX case. Then had 8 drives in a Full Phanteks tower. Now I have a 15 bay Rosewill case. I built a rack for mine, but it could sit on a shelf somewhere.

I have one of these with these cables to expand on sata ports.

I picked up a couple of R410s a few weeks ago from a friend. I thought of a similar idea as you but my idea was to remove the backplane completely and connect the HDDs straight to onboard SATA ports. Then there is a power issue, how will I power the HDDs when I just removed the backplane? So I just went ahead and purchased a H310 and flashed it to IT mode and ran these to the backplane.

/u/clickwir has basically summed it up. The "header cable" that you are describing is actually a board known as a backplane which your HDDs will slot into and on the back are the SATA connections. Hot swap is fancy terminology describing harddrives that can be easily accessed and replaced without shutting down or stopping the machine.

The reason why a SAS addon card is good is because each SAS port can take on 4 SATA connections making your wiring look very sleek. The downside is that you will likely have to buy the card and won't be able to take advantage of all your motherboard's SATA ports.

Hi, thanks, this is the exact cable I’m using https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B010CMW6S4?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_pd_title

There was also a cable that came with this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LSI-SAS-9217-8i-RAID-HBA-SAS-CARD-8-INTERNAL-6Gb-s-SAS-SATA3-2-port-cable-/382576399397?txnId=965314397025 that I have tried.

I’ve been feeling the hard drive to see if it’s spinning and I don’t think it has been, for whatever reason it isn’t drawing power..

SATA drives have worked on the card.

Drive is Western Digital 12TB DC HC520
https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc500-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-dc-hc520.pdf

I ordered two of these - CableCreation Internal Mini... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KFEVQ4E?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

They're a bit long but they work. Make sure you order the correct angle. Mine were right angle. The card can be updated with the latest Dell firmware and it can be placed in the storage slot. This allows drives of higher capacity. Currently have two 3tb drives running and will be adding a couple few 8s in a few days.

I'm assuming your 710 is the LFF with 3.5in drives?

And just grab a couple of these and I should be good?

https://imgur.com/a/KojZuIB/

Cable management's a little rough, but I'm using these 1m/3ft cables. If it were an option, I'd go with slightly longer cables because everything's a bit snug, but that's more to do with my system as a whole. If you'd like I can show the inside tomorrow when it's idle.

It wouldn't be the prettiest thing, but a card like this (not necessarily the cheapest one, just the first one I found) with one of these cables will get you four external SATA ports.

I've very very rarely seen or read about dmraid working or being worth the complications using dmraid offers.

There's always just better more equipped solutions than dmraid.

This is why I usually just tell people asking why their hard disks don't show up in "Linux Installers" that motherboard provided software raid is generally not supported in Linux.

Have you considered upgrading to full hardware raid? you would only need a capable raid controller, breakout cables and minimum two more matching hard disks if you wanted to upgrade to raid 5.

The raid disk controllers i use are also extremely affordable, reliable and supported natively with Linux.

If you do buy one of these raid controllers you will need the proper cables to connect sata hard disks.

The overall benefit of using a physical hardware raid controller is the raid volume and array being operating system and hardware agnostic meaning if your motherboard dies or your os install implodes you don't loose your raid array contents.

Your raid solution is a good one but it employs hardware dependency and design flaws.

I should also mention that specific model of LSI raid controller only uses pci express version 2 but it will work with pcie 3.0 with a firmware update. If you wanted to just use a pcie 3.0 raid controller the 9271-8i model is newer and somewhat faster due to newer dram on the raid controller but the cost increases somewhat.

I've been using the 9260 models for perhaps 8 years and so far haven't lost a single raid volume or filesystem to a hard disk failure.

So something like this?




https://www.amazon.com/CABLEDECONN-SFF-8087-SFF-8482-Connectors-Power/dp/B010CMW6S4?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_4

You have exactly the right HBA already. Nice job! All you need now is SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 cables.

$14.99 https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B013G4F3A8

Those cards slot into your PCI slots on your motherboard, and provide an interface that lets you plug more stuff into it and have them be read as disks. You'll likely also want a cable like this too: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010CMW6S4

Along with a card similar to what you linked to, that let my motherboard interface with 4 more disks.

These cables work as well if anyone is looking for some on amazon.

I use these spliters for more SATA power connectors and These hotswap cages for housing the drives. They are often on sale at newegg for $40-60, this card Flashed to IT mode will add another 8 sata connections via two sas connectors(sff-8087) via a breakout cable

Currently I am running 8x3tb drives in my pc with a gtx 970 and my 550watt PSU handles it just fine.

In order to use the drive at full link speed (SAS3) you would need something like this: https://www.amazon.com/LSI-Broadcom-9300-8i-PCI-Express-Profile/dp/B00DSURZYS and this cable to go with it (for a desktop anyhow): https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-Internal-SFF-8643-SFF-8482-connectors/dp/B01F378UF6

if you don't care about getting the full 12Gb/s from it you can go with the cheaper LSI-9207-8i controller ( https://www.amazon.com/LSI-Logic-9207-8i-Controller-LSI00301/dp/B0085FT2JC ) and this cable https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4FEGG/ which would allow you to get 6Gb/s which is the current max SATA speeds anyhow. (SATA1 is 1.5Gb/s, SATA2 is 3Gb/s, and SATA3 is 6Gb/s while SAS1 is 3Gb/s, SAS2 is 6Gb/s and SAS3 is 12Gb/s

I have one in my R720XD with flexbay, you only need one card

as for cable length i tried finding my purchase and i am fairly sure i went with 2 of these right angle ones:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

You don’t. You find SAS controllers like the H200 or LSI 9200-8e if you need external connections.

Internally you can use one of these if you need SATA.

Cable Matters Internal Mini SAS to SATA Cable (SFF-8087 to SATA Forward Breakout) 1.6 Feet https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YHS8BS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uvl8CbJM89PS0

These are what I ordered a few weeks ago, they work great in my R710+M1015. They are out of stock now but you might be able to lookup the cable on ebay by the same mfg.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KFEVQ4E/

What you really want is one^1 of^2 these^3 ; add some cables^4 and you have 8 ports per pcie x8 slot.

Sounds like an 8088 external mini SAS.
https://www.amazon.com/Norco-Technologies-C-SFF8088-External-SFF-8088/dp/B003J9CZCK

You can purchase something like this and then buy two of these breakout cables to add 8 HDDs without using any of the sata ports.

I don't have one to sell, but you may want to consider an IBM M1015. It has 2x SAS ports which can be turned into 8x SATA via two of these.

If the $250 price on Amazon is too much you can get them used (or "new" sometimes) on Ebay for as little as $50. Which also opens up some more options for faster shipment, I suppose.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=psdc_6795231011_t3_B008KF7H8U

edit: 9211-8i has two of those ports, so you'll need two sets of those cables, like this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0728KRZYB/ref=psdc_6795231011_t3_B012BPLYJC

He’s using RAID cards in the PCI slots that have mini SAS ports, then uses mini SAS to SATA breakout cables like this: CableCreation Mini SAS 36Pin (SFF-8087) Male to 4 SATA 7Pin Female Cable, Mini SAS Host/Controller to 4 SATA Target/Backplane, 1.0M https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4EOEY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ap3XCbWQEG8PP

I have a similar build for freenas. I got a m1015 and needed a cable like this: CableCreation Internal Mini SAS(SFF-8087) 36Pin Right Angle Male to Internal Mini SAS (SFF-8087) 36Pin Male Cable, 0.75 Meter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_eHCDAb964EF7P

Something like this?

https://imgur.com/a/OzIi5

I'm currently using a ASRock E3C224D4I-14S which has integrated LSI 2308 controller. It has 3x mini SAS ports which I use breakout cables giving me 12 drives. To get more ports I can use a SAS expander card or an extra pci controller.

Don't forget the cable as well. Mini SAS SFF-8088

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9211-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-Dell-H310-6Gbps-SAS-HBA/253955813684?epid=19006955695&hash=item3b20f23134:g:kKkAAOSwMjpb11RL:rk:2:pf:0

+

2x https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC

Do a little research on it before just buying and running with it, but it's generally straight forward.

There's not really 6gbps or 3gbps cables, SAS cables are SAS cables.

Sideband signal is for connections to backplanes.

Yes, the direction, forward or reverse, breakout does matter, don't buy anything that doesn't specify.

Here's a good one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YHS8BS

Yeah I have these just have to hook sata power to them. I'm also using these converters to go from the 8080 to 8087

Cables: 2x of these: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/

SAS/SATA Controller Card: https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002RL8I7M/

You might find it on eBay for less. Just posting the Amazon links for clarity.

Plug the card into a free PCI-e slot on your mobo.

Plug the Mini SAS SFF-8087 connectors into the two ports on the HBA card.

Plug the SATA connectors into the back of your 5-drive hotswap bay cage.

Insert the HDDs into the hotswap trays (if it uses trays).

Turn things on. Bob's your uncle.

P.S. if you want PCI-e 3.0 version of the HBA card, you'll need to look for "LSI 93xxx" versions of the card. They're more expensive. Also, some others go for different manufacturer cards. I prefer LSI brand.

If you just want to RAID the whole thing, there are cheaper alternatives, but hardware level RAID HBA cards suck IMHO. With this type of HBA SAS/SATA Controller, you can basically pass-through the drives straight to your computer, and they'll show up as individual drives. Later you can then RAID them via software, or not.

I went with right angle cables as well. These are the ones I used.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

CableCreation Internal Mini SAS(SFF-8087) 36Pin Right Angle Male to Internal Mini SAS (SFF-8087) 36Pin Male Cable, 0.75 Meter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KFEVQ4E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_5qoKAbRZNNAD5

These are the cables you need. They were $12/pair a couple days ago, but $16 still isn't bad.

This is the cable you'll be looking at, and you'll need two of them because they have 4 SATA cables each - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC

As far as the LSI 9211-8i goes, it's one of the most recommended RAID cards. You can also look at the PERC H310 as it is just a re-branded version of that card and may be a bit cheaper. What RAID configuration are you looking at?

> The motherboard in my supermicro has a SAS2 controller onboard so I just have that 1 red sata-to-8087 miniSAS reverse breakout that connects the motherboard to the case and all 24 bays work.

I had no idea you could do that. So you just need this cable and you can connect all 24-drives? How does this work with the motherboard? Do you need something special controller built in?

I put a lsi 9201-8i in mine. With a pair of right angle sas cables from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CKXFKHT?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

No need to change the backplane. Make sure you get the RIGHT angle ones. Not the left angle.

You can get the [non-premium] connector for $1, dunno what the difference actually is.


The data cables I just got off of Amazon. Link

[non-premium]: https://www.moddiy.com/products/SATA-Power-Connector-Black.html

My motherboard has a 32Gbps M.2 slot that I have no use for.

I would also like to add more SATA devices.

Any reason why this wouldn't work?:

M.2 to mini-SAS adaptor:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813998031

mini-SAS to 4 SATA port breakout cable:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B1IVEM2/

Well I decided to go for this. Used this cable to connect the cage to my LSI 9300-8i adapter. So far so good. I'm running a single ST8000NM0065 drive, but will eventually add a second in a ZFS mirror.

Will continue to check the drive as time passes.

If you want to use those cables, you'll need to get a bunch of Molex splitters, because your power supply only comes with one peripheral cable that has 3 Molex connectors. You may want to look at this SAS cable as an alternative:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4FEGG/

Then you can use the SATA power cables that came with your supply to power most of the drives.
Regardless of which option you choose, you will need at least a couple splitters, because the supply only has 12 total connectors.

One other option if you don't want to deal with spaghetti in your case would be to roll your own cables. Check out this guide:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/25pftl/discussion_making_custom_sata_power_cables/

No, the SAS back panel will also have the single SFF-8087 port - it will look the same as on the Dell H200.

You just need a regular cable like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-Mini-SAS/dp/B011W2F626/

You want 8087-to-8482. You'll also need SATA power splitters; there are some linked in Amazon's "frequently bought together" section:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4FEGG/

I have an r710 and use an h310, I used these (think the 700 uses the same):

Cable Matters Internal Mini-SAS to Internal Mini-SAS Cable 3.3 Feet / 1m https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011W2F626/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_7EcDzbAG31YNF

They are sas/sata compatible on the HDD side. You would need 2 of those lsi cards with 3 sff8087 to sata plugs.

Cable Matters Internal Mini SAS to SATA Cable (SFF-8087 to SATA Forward Breakout) 3.3 Feet https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bVg4Db0FS37N2

Here is the HBA I use with FreeNAS.

LSI Logic SAS 9207-8i Storage Controller LSI00301 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085FT2JC/

You will also need these to connect drives to that card.
Cable Matters Internal Mini SAS to SATA Cable https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012BPLYJC/

is this the right cable to go from the R710 with an LSI 9200-8E to the MD1200?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-External-26-Pin-SFF-8088-108185/dp/B008VLHJBI/ref=pd_bxgy_147_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B008VLHJBI&pd_rd_r=7EYZV4X1AK6NF3MW1BTS&pd_rd_w=PpJW1&pd_rd_wg=dtb3b&psc=1&refRID=7EYZV4X1AK6NF3MW1BTS#customerReviews

If the ports are internal they are probably sff-8087, in which case you need one of these.

If the ports are external sff-8088 then use a DAS box.

I've seen this IT mode mentioned several times, what is it and what's the difference? What do you mean by SAS breakout cables? Is this the sort of cable you mean?

I just did the same thing. I bought an LSI SAS controller and a data cable:

Controller

Data Cable

I am looking at rolling my own. Here are the components I am thinking about using.

Cables
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843852&sr=8-3&keywords=sas+to+sata

Case
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Computer-Pre-Installed-RSV-L4412/dp/B00N9CXGSO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843870&sr=8-3&keywords=rosewill+12

SAS Multiplier
https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-16-Channel-Port-Multiplier-Rocket-EJ340/dp/B00DWV4SKM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843893&sr=8-1&keywords=sas+expander

Use a forward breakout cable?

https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8PORT-Int-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002RL8I7M/ref=pd_ybh_a_30?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QZ552F2XPHH64TJYWE61

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=pd_ybh_a_29?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QZ552F2XPHH64TJYWE61

this should help

Just remember to buy SFF-8087 to SATA Forward Breakout cables, not Reverse breakout.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=sas+to+sata&qid=1556200941&s=gateway&sr=8-3

I need new cables to connect the back panel to the LSI don't I?

I currently have https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ordered one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BPLYJC/