Interesting cheap JBODs available

The SAS 5/E should be an LSI 1068 (PCIx) with a PCIx to PCIe bridge chip on board. These come with an outdated IR firmware from dell and i don't recall if the IT firmware was ever made available from them; so passing disks through can be cumbersome. My initial attempts to cross-flash an LSI official IT firmware onto an SAS 5/i failed miserably, so i just shelved the unit and got my hands on an SAS 6 which is an actual 1068e and does not require the bridge chip. I was able to cross flash the SAS 6 but i don't think dell ever released an "external" version; so if you choose to use one, you'd need some adapters like i did.
 
Sounds good, I have a few e-bay bids out on LSI 9211 4i, LSI SAS3801E, and 9211-8i so I'll see if any of those come to fruition.
 
SO, i finally ripped mine open and stuck a RoamerIP LOM board in there. It's not quite plug and play but i got it working. The Roamer allows remote power on/off, restart and serial terminal access, but best of all it will handle automatic power-on after power failure with an adjustable delay.

In the process of poking around trying to figure out how the roamer is supposed to be powered i found that the little power board in these chassis are not as straight-forward as they initially appear. The power switch bridges a pin to gound, simple enough, but the pins for Power_LED are actually 5VSB and what appears to be a switched and current-regulated anode. The pair of header pins located off by themselves are actually wired directly to ground and do not appear to serve any purpose. The previous tactic of throwing a jumper wire from the far pair of pins to an unspecified position on the 2x5 header to provide auto-on after power fail functionality should be the same as using a simple jumper to bridge pins 1 and 2 (red and brown) on the 2x5 header. I haven't bothered trying this, because that is what i got the roamer for.

As for the serial connection to the expander, i can "listen" to the expander but cannot interact with it. I think my pinout may need to be tweaked with a custom cable.

EDIT: I just dug back through the thread and noticed Veeb0rg has a unit with a roamer built-in! i knew i had seen it somewhere before... please oh PLEASE can i get a closeup shot of the little ribbon to dupont adapter running inline between the roamer and expander.
 
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I grabbed it from eBay, there are a few sellers with roamers listed. The one i bought (http://www.ebay.com/itm/360684080764) had cables included but they were intended to interface with a normal motherboard so i'll have to build myself some custom cables... when i can figure out the RS232 pinout for the expander.

As we know the expander is undocumented; the documentation for the roamer is a bit better but still does not list the function of most of the on-board headers. I intended to add the LCD option as well but the commonly available unit will not fit in the expansion bay of this chassis.
 
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I realize this thread hasn't been updated in a few months, but I want to compliment the forum for providing an interesting and useful thread. After 6 months I just finally got around to setting up my Omnistor se3016 JBOD chassis. It's currently attached to an IBM1015 HBA flashed over to LSI 9211 firmware. As mentioned in previous posts, these things are LOUD stock, especially the PS fan. I suppose that's ok in the basement or a well insulated server closet, but mine sits on the floor next to my work station, so first up was swapping out all of the fans. I went with 2 Vortex Cf-V12H 120mm case fans on sale at NewEgg and a Noctua 40mm NF A4X -10 inside the PS. This chassis went from a jet plane to quieter than my work station and still runs very cool. Problem one solved. Next up was addressing the 3Gbps expander. One very useful aspect of these chassis is the ability to segregate out the HDD connections on the back-plane. Each row across has a separate SAS connector. With the addition of a Intel 6Gbps expander card (for instance), this chassis can be a 'split' setup with two controllers addressing the HDDs. I have many older 3Gbps HDDs which I have to access periodically, so leaving the top row hooked up to the stock expander works for me with the other 3 rows hooked up to the Intel RES2SV240NC I installed. The other great aspect about these chassis is the half rack size which is very useful for 'out of rack' configurations like mine.
The Super-Micro SC846E16-R1200B (and similar) chassis are on sale on Ebay in various configurations. I have one of these hooked up to my server and it is excellent, but is extremely LOUD as well (5 case fans, 2 screaming PS fans). I'm going to have to address this with replacement fans at some point. There are several advantages to the SM product over the Omnistor 3016, the first being that it contains slots for 20 HDDs with redundant PS and is better built - better quality. It is also a full size chassis that will accept up to an EATX server main-board, so turning it into a full server is a possible future upgrade. I'm using mine as a disk array for now. Another advantage of the SM product is its built in 6Gbps back-plane - no need to add another expander card, BUT, the SM back-plane addresses all of the HDDs from a single SAS connection - so no 'split' setups. Being full size, it's also much larger and heavier than the 3016. The biggest issue is that after all of the modifications to the 3016, it was actually slightly more expensive than an empty SM SC846E16-R1200B JBOD chassis (no server parts). As with all situations, there are advantages and disadvantages to using any chassis, but I did have a lot of fun and satisfaction doing the mod. :) Here are a couple of reduced size pictures of my modified 3016. I soldered the power connection wires for the Intel RES2SV240 expander card. I noticed 'thatoneuser' posts got much 'feedback' for using wire-nuts, although in my opinion, the wire-nuts will work just fine. http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/PHubb1/slideshow/

on supermicro, did you buy newer model that has sas2 backplane?
if yes, all fans are pwm models., you need to buy a pwm controller that can do daisy-chain.
my 3016 with modded fan 120mm and 40mm is in my lack-rack sitting unused.
 
According to the specs the SM back-plane is SAS2 compliant - (BPN-SAS2-846EL1). It contains a single SAS input (SFF 8087) to the expander chip which then addresses all 24 HDDs through the BP. They also make a model that has a dual input back-plane (BPN-SAS2-846EL2) for added redundancy using actual dual ported SAS HDDs, but that's not in mine.
I haven't changed out the fans in the SM unit yet, although it's pretty loud and I'm going to have to do it eventually. Yes- I saw that the fans are PWM which will make it a bit more expensive, but the fans that are really screaming are the two in the power supplies. I haven't opened them up yet to see what's inside the PS, but I'm hoping for regular 3 pin. The PS fans look to be 40mm size. Any info or suggestions you can provide for replacement fans will be much appreciated - I'm thinking I'll have to go with Noctua models. You've retired your 3016? It's perfect for my situation, I've actually grown to love it now that it's quiet and SAS2. Has anyone who's using the SM model as a straight DAS chassis posted anything on modding the fans? I noticed that most of the users with SM models have them set up as full servers but I don't really need another server right now, thus just using it as a DAS chassis.
thanks for the reply.
PHubb

Pwm fan controller is not expensive. You can do daisy chain for all fans. The fan is quite on 1000rpm with enough air flow.
Overall sm will save$ than modding 3016 by assuming you do no net half depth case.

You need to use psu hack. Whenever you plug the power cable. Psu will on automatically. Or
Get something to mimic power on when power button is pressed.

Was planning to put mini itx motherboard with new psu on 3016. I backed off due on buying sm micro is $ cheaper without mod
 
...You need to use psu hack. Whenever you plug the power cable. Psu will on automatically. Or
Get something to mimic power on when power button is pressed...

The clean way to do this with SuperMicro's JBOD power control board, CSE-PTJBOD-CB2. It connects to PSU plug, a couple of the fans and the SuperMicro front panel connecter. Gives you power on/off and controls the power light. You can find them regularly on eBay for decent prices (~$25-45).

16-101-800-03.jpg
 
I just bought one of these

Anyone know the best way to mount them? Mine came with ears on the box and four posts on the back. No bolts, rails, etc. I have cage nuts and bolts (M10?) for my rack, but does it need more support for it?
 
Thanks for that. I am just concerned about the total weight with just the screws holding it in. I will probably just mount it up like a switch and hope for the best in this case xD
 
I got a lil crazy and went search for HP's MDS600 devices to find out these are damn amazing for pennies.

70 SAS/SATA disks in a 5U chassis with quad PSU/Controllers

The MDS600 supports 4TB disks so you are looking at 250ish TB of space to use.

All for around $600 or so on ebay.

Astonishing tech that is dirt cheap for SAS shelves.
 
I got a lil crazy and went search for HP's MDS600 devices to find out these are damn amazing for pennies.

70 SAS/SATA disks in a 5U chassis with quad PSU/Controllers

The MDS600 supports 4TB disks so you are looking at 250ish TB of space to use.

All for around $600 or so on ebay.

Astonishing tech that is dirt cheap for SAS shelves.
Better add in the cost of earplugs :)
 
I got a lil crazy and went search for HP's MDS600 devices to find out these are damn amazing for pennies.

70 SAS/SATA disks in a 5U chassis with quad PSU/Controllers

The MDS600 supports 4TB disks so you are looking at 250ish TB of space to use.

All for around $600 or so on ebay.

Astonishing tech that is dirt cheap for SAS shelves.

Does it support any disk and not just HP modified ones ? What about bigger disks ?
 
Does it support any disk and not just HP modified ones ? What about bigger disks ?


Looks like it supports ANY disk as I have seen people put in SAS and SATA disks without a problem.

I haven't seen anyone stating they support larger than 4TB disks as of yet.
 
I just bought one of these

Anyone know the best way to mount them? Mine came with ears on the box and four posts on the back. No bolts, rails, etc. I have cage nuts and bolts (M10?) for my rack, but does it need more support for it?

I had the exact same question (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1813939). I was assured the ears were fine, mounted by the ears and have had absolutely no problem.
 
Perfect fit.

SE3016.jpg

That looks good. I was thinking of doing something like this myself. Attach the SSD, or a notebook HDD on the side. I'm just worried about the data if I move from an external cable to the internal one.
 
That looks good. I was thinking of doing something like this myself. Attach the SSD, or a notebook HDD on the side. I'm just worried about the data if I move from an external cable to the internal one.

the data is still there...

my plan was:
1) get 80 plus Gold or platinum 1U PSU from ebay. $40 or lower..
2) install mini-itx mobo, prefers haswell Intel due on low power idle. (newegg deal.)
3) make custom extension cables for VGA, and 2 USB (some spares)
4) replace with 120mm fan on the back (have more than 10 fans, mostly free AR)
5) rip-off SAS1 expander and replace with SAS2 expander.
6) make arduino web monitoring system, to mimic minimally for getting status, power off, power on, and restart. (* easy to do with ethershield and some sensors with extra components).

but I got spoiled with SM case with expander backplane :D..
 
I got a lil crazy and went search for HP's MDS600 devices to find out these are damn amazing for pennies.

70 SAS/SATA disks in a 5U chassis with quad PSU/Controllers

The MDS600 supports 4TB disks so you are looking at 250ish TB of space to use.

All for around $600 or so on ebay.

Astonishing tech that is dirt cheap for SAS shelves.

Good units... I was part of the team that designed these years ago...
 
Perfect fit.

SE3016.jpg

PSU airflow is wrong. You've got the PSU exhaust pushing into the sidewall of the case. Not ideal. Might be better off using a flex-ATX PSU if you can get one with the right power rating.

...
6) make arduino web monitoring system, to mimic minimally for getting status, power off, power on, and restart. (* easy to do with ethershield and some sensors with extra components).

No need to get that creative - just get a MB with IPMI support.
 
I bought more of those. First one I got 2 years ago is still rocking. I tested the first of my new batch, works fine, makes as much noise as a space shuttle. I couldn't find the same 40mm fan I used last time so I bought another. The enclosure now boots and stops after a few seconds. Is it the fan for sure ? So many screws to go through...
 
I bought more of those. First one I got 2 years ago is still rocking. I tested the first of my new batch, works fine, makes as much noise as a space shuttle. I couldn't find the same 40mm fan I used last time so I bought another. The enclosure now boots and stops after a few seconds. Is it the fan for sure ? So many screws to go through...

I've had a similar problem. Whenever i try to replace the 40mm fan with anything but stock the enclosure boots, fan spins then shuts down after a few seconds. If i put back in original fan the enclosure works fine.
 
Is that 3 pin fan replacement?
Without rpm sensor. PSU will shutdown to assume the fan is not spinning due to rpm is too low
 
I bought more of those. First one I got 2 years ago is still rocking. I tested the first of my new batch, works fine, makes as much noise as a space shuttle. I couldn't find the same 40mm fan I used last time so I bought another. The enclosure now boots and stops after a few seconds. Is it the fan for sure ? So many screws to go through...

Posted this several months ago. Thought I would repost in case you were still seeing the same issue.

I just finished replacing my 40mm fan with a noctua but I am running into issues with it shutting down after 10 seconds. I'm assuming because the fan speed isn't being reported. I have a red, black, white and blue cable on the old fan. Does anyone know which one reports that the fan is active and a way to fix it?

Original 40mm PSU fan - http://imgur.com/K8JeDwB

Thanks!

EDIT: Fixed. Soldered the blue wire to the noctua yellow wire. Everything good now.
 
Anyone know of any good 3.5 to 2.5 drive adapters out there that are confirmed working with the se3016? I need to put 1 ssd in a tray for a lab setup.
 
Anyone know of any good 3.5 to 2.5 drive adapters out there that are confirmed working with the se3016? I need to put 1 ssd in a tray for a lab setup.

Search eBay for HP 654540-001

They work well with most hot swap bays, just watch the airflow....

.
 
Can anyone who has done the fan mods post some pics of splicing in the new 40mm fan (I guess the Noctua that is recommended in this thread)? Since I have not attempted something like that pics and an explanation would be extremely helpful!

Also, to those of you who have changed the 80mm fans to 120mm, can you post those steps and instructions for modding the case as well?

Thanks!!
 
Can anyone who has done the fan mods post some pics of splicing in the new 40mm fan (I guess the Noctua that is recommended in this thread)? Since I have not attempted something like that pics and an explanation would be extremely helpful!

Also, to those of you who have changed the 80mm fans to 120mm, can you post those steps and instructions for modding the case as well?

Thanks!!

I just went through this process a few weeks ago. I"ll snap some photos and post em shortly if you still need them.
 
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