Interesting cheap JBODs available

packetboy said:
Looks like my dreams where crushed...I got all the cables..both from Monoprixe and Hong Kong. However, when I try to bypass the expander by using these cables with the Sas Switch it doesn't recognize any of the drives. Poking through the switch manual it states you can't connect drives *directly* to the switch (e.g. I presume you MUST use an expander).
Click to expand...

Ouch, yeah looking at all the videos they seem to have them attached to Supermicro JBODS...

Tho they also state in one video about "Active SAS Cables" not heard of them before
but the controller they are using is a "lsi 9201-16e"

:confused:
 
Last edited:
Stanza33 said:
Ouch, yeah looking at all the videos they seem to have them attached to Supermicro JBODS...

Tho they also state in one wideo about "Active SAS Cables" not heard of them before
but the controller they are using is a "lsi 9201-16e"

:confused:
Click to expand...

Two of the ports on the SAS switch support active cabling...I haven't researched this but those allow you to use much longer SAS cables than normal...they ports *do* support regular cables too.

LSI's response to whether the 6160 supports multiplexing:

'Multiplexing is not supported.'

Gesh...you tout the capability of your expander chipset (Multiplexing) and then everywhere that chipset is deployed it's not implemented....really sucks.
 
Hello,
Do you guys recommend the "SGI InfiniteStorage 1116" 3U rack? I have a Dell R710 and planning on getting a PERC 6e card and expand my server's storage.
Anything negative with this SGI InfiniteStorage 1116 that I should be aware of before buying? Thanks.
 
I think the consensus is that they are RACKABLE SYSTEMS SE3016, not 1116. That is assuming you are buying from the vendors on Ebay.
 
haileris said:
I think the consensus is that they are RACKABLE SYSTEMS SE3016, not 1116. That is assuming you are buying from the vendors on Ebay.
Click to expand...

I understand that SE3016 are older ones. What are the new features that are in 1116 (vs.SE3016)? Thanks.
 
The ebay cheaper ebay ones are SE1016, 3G sas
There are some of the 1116 units though, these are 6G sas connections, dunno of any other differences.
 
Reposted from OCAU forums

========

Ok here is a bit of info that might help some...

Might work nicely with these units??

Identifying drives a different way.

A few here have Norco cases and these Cheap JBODS, so I am interested in how they appear... as the below info may help you identify drives / and their locations in the backplanes (if not Chassis etc if you have one of those also ... ie an expander and something that can enumerate system topology and accurately.

======

So here goes.

With my MSA70's and using plain ol SAS controllers... not SAS2 chipped controllers... identifying drives is and can be a challenge. For several reasons.

Reason 1 = as I have 68 Bays to play with.... compared to having just a controller with say 4 or 8 ports... picking which drive to add to or remove from a vdev can be rather interesting.

Before with just 8 ports on the ol SAS controller it was sort of easy...eg a drive would be called say c3t2d0

So to find out which drive was which was also easy... as you could enumerate it down sort of simply
c3t2d0 broke down into
c3 = controller number 3
t2 = Target number 2 (or port 2 if you like)
d0 = Drive 0

So if I added / removed a drive it was simple to identify which was which

Now Moving t using an expander based chassis and things move around a bit and are detected differently

A Drive that was c3t2d0 becomes...(if it is in the 2nd bay) c3t36d0

MSA70 has 25 bays which seem to get numbered from t35 thru to t58 (yeah I don't know either why it starts @ 35 ??:confused: and also no idea why 35 + 25 somehow = 58 ??

anyways it can get confusing.... and No I don't know what the second chassis drive numbering goes when it is daisychained....yet.

But...on with the show


So to organise it a little more simply

Enter the lovely command "croinfo"
cro means

Chassis
Recepticle
Occupant

DESCRIPTION
The diskinfo and croinfo utility share the same binary exe-
cutable. At runtime, the utility checks to see how it was
invoked, and adjusts defaults.

The croinfo utility allows users to query and display
specific aspects of a system's configuration. Queries are
performed against a record-oriented dataset that captures
the relationship between physical location and various
aspects of the device currently at that physical location.
This relationship is expressed in terms of Chassis, Recepta-
cle, and Occupant (thus the cro prefix).

:leet:

Neato

So now instead of using the format command to try and identify a drive eg

Code: 
root@solaris:~# format
Searching for disks...done


AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c3t35d0 <HP-DG072A8B54-HPD7-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@23,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________1/disk
       1. c3t36d0 <HP-DG072A9BB7-HPD0-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@24,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________2/disk
       2. c3t37d0 <HP-DG072A9BB7-HPD0-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@25,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________3/disk
       3. c3t38d0 <HP-DG072A4951-HPD4-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@26,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________4/disk
       4. c3t39d0 <HP-DG072A9BB7-HPD0-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@27,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________5/disk
       5. c3t40d0 <HP-DG072A8B54-HPD7-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@28,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________6/disk
       6. c3t41d0 <HP-DG072A8B54-HPD7-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@29,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________7/disk
       7. c3t42d0 <HP-DG072A8B54-HPD7-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@2a,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________8/disk
       8. c3t58d0 <ATA-ST91000430AS-CC9D-931.51GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@3a,0
          /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________24/disk
       9. c3t43d0 <HP-DG072A8B54-HPD7-68.37GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@2b,0
      10. c3t59d0 <ATA-ST91000430AS-CC9D-931.51GB>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25f7@2/pci8086,3500@0/pci8086,3514@1/pci103c,3229@0/sd@3b,0
      11. c4t0d0 <HP-LOGICAL VOLUME-1.86 cyl 4420 alt 2 hd 255 sec 63>
          /pci@0,0/pci8086,25e5@5/pci1166,103@0/pci103c,3211@8/sd@0,0
Specify disk (enter its number):

Lovely output isn't it...:sick:

now lets run croinfo command by itself and see what we get instead

Code: 
root@solaris:~# croinfo
D:devchassis-path                                                            t:occupant-type  c:occupant-compdev
---------------------------------------------------------------------------  ---------------  ------------------
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________0        -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________1/disk   disk             c3t35d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________2/disk   disk             c3t36d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________3/disk   disk             c3t37d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________4/disk   disk             c3t38d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________5/disk   disk             c3t39d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________6/disk   disk             c3t40d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________7/disk   disk             c3t41d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________8/disk   disk             c3t42d0
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________9        -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________10       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________11       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________12       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________13       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________14       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________15       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________16       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________17       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________18       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________19       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________20       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________21       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________22       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________23       -                -
/dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100/Bay__________________________24/disk  disk             c3t58d0

Thats a little better, but now lets tidy it up a little, for even more readability.

So now we introduce the fmadm command "fmadm - fault management configuration tool" .... yes seems a weird tool to tidy up the output of a Chassis Recepticle Occupant output...

But when you run the fmadm command by itself we see, part of it's use is to manage Chassis alias's:thumbup:

Code: 
root@solaris:~# fmadm
Usage: fmadm [-P prog] [-q] [cmd [args ... ]]

    Fault Status and Administration
        fmadm faulty [-afgiprsv] [-n <max_fault>] [-u <uuid>]
                display list of faulty resources
        fmadm acquit <fmri> [<uuid>] | <label> [<uuid>] | <uuid>
                acquit resource or acquit case
        fmadm replaced <fmri> | <label>
                notify fault manager that resource has been replaced
        fmadm repaired <fmri> | <label>
                notify fault manager that resource has been repaired

[COLOR="Yellow"][B]    Chassis Alias Administration
        fmadm add-alias <product-id>.<chassis-id> <alias-id> ['comment']
                add alias to /etc/dev/chassis_aliases database
        fmadm remove-alias <alias-id> | <product-id>.<chassis-id>
                remove mapping from /etc/dev/chassis_aliases database
        fmadm lookup-alias <alias-id> | <product-id>.<chassis-id>
                lookup mapping in /etc/dev/chassis_aliases database
        fmadm list-alias
                list current /etc/dev/chassis_aliases database
        fmadm sync-alias
                verify /etc/dev/chassis_aliases contents and sync[/B][/COLOR]
    Caution: Documented Fault Repair Procedures Only...
      Module Administration
        fmadm config
                display fault manager configuration
        fmadm load <path>
                load specified fault manager module
        fmadm unload <module>
                unload specified fault manager module
        fmadm reset [-s serd] <module>
                reset module or sub-component
      Log Administration
        fmadm rotate <logname>
                rotate log file
      Fault Administration
        fmadm flush <fmri> ...
                flush cached state for resource

Which is what we will have a go at now.

My 1st chassis is identified as /dev/chassis/HP-MSA70.5001438000408100

So I am going to make it something smaller and more readable / sensible

Let say as I have two MSA70's I will call one MSA70A and the Other MSA70B (makes sense to me):tongue:

Code: 
root@solaris:~# fmadm add-alias HP-MSA70.5001438000408100 MSA70A 'MSA70 Top'

Now whats it look like?

Code: 
root@solaris:~# croinfo
D:devchassis-path                                         t:occupant-type  c:occupant-compdev
--------------------------------------------------------  ---------------  ------------------
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________0        -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________1/disk   disk             c3t35d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________2/disk   disk             c3t36d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________3/disk   disk             c3t37d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________4/disk   disk             c3t38d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________5/disk   disk             c3t39d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________6/disk   disk             c3t40d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________7/disk   disk             c3t41d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________8/disk   disk             c3t42d0
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________9        -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________10       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________11       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________12       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________13       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________14       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________15       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________16       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________17       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________18       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________19       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________20       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________21       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________22       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________23       -                -
/dev/chassis/MSA70A/Bay__________________________24/disk  disk             c3t58d0

Thats better.... no idea yet how to change the silly HP Bay numbering...eg get rid of the annoying ______________ bits.

You will notice my chassis obviously doesn't fully use the SES2 standard... so Bays are a little weird... in that Bay________0 is the
Chassis itself??.... and Bay___25 is not represented as a bay... just as c3t58d0 outside of a bay??

So it's not perfect... but it's definately easier to manage.

Naturally when you have racks and racks of storage chassis, the above tools would come in very handy.

You could instead label an alias from
HP-MSA70.5001438000408100
to something helpful

Lets say it's sitting in Rack #10 and racked @ a level of 26RU High
We could call / alias it something smarter

HPMSA70.Asset#128934 MSA70@RACK10__U26-U27

Make finding the right drive in a large Data Centre quite helpful eh?:p

BTW

/dev/chassis
should contain your chassis / backplane info

a line gets added to
/etc/dev/chassis_aliases

When you use fmadm to add an alias

Now I am off to destroy some more shit:D

as I see /dev/chassis/MSA70A contains folders/directories called

Code: 
root@solaris:/dev/chassis/MSA70A# ls
Bay__________________________0   Bay__________________________15  Bay__________________________21  Bay__________________________6
Bay__________________________1   Bay__________________________16  Bay__________________________22  Bay__________________________7
Bay__________________________10  Bay__________________________17  Bay__________________________23  Bay__________________________8
Bay__________________________11  Bay__________________________18  Bay__________________________24  Bay__________________________9
Bay__________________________12  Bay__________________________19  Bay__________________________3
Bay__________________________13  Bay__________________________2   Bay__________________________4
Bay__________________________14  Bay__________________________20  Bay__________________________5
root@solaris:/dev/chassis/MSA70A#

Wonder what happens if I rename them:leet:

Muhahaha

Maybe someone can post a croinfo output from the RACKABLE SYSTEMS SE3016 ??

.
 
Funny, there was no croinfo on the live CD of Solaris Express 11 either.

I found it when I used the live USB version...

Hmmm

.
 
Do these support 3/4tb drives? As in does the sas expander support them or does it rely on the HBA raid card like the LSI SAS 8888ELP?
 
Yes the chassis' should. In theory 3/4tb support it is up to the HBA/Raid card and the OS/System.
 
Hmmm, so I now have a SE3016. I also re-installed with Solaris 11. Running croinfo and diskinfo show me the enclosure, but no disks:

root@nas:~# croinfo
D:devchassis-path t:eek:ccupant-type c:eek:ccupant-compdev
----------------------------------- --------------- ------------------
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_0 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_1 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_2 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_3 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_4 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_5 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_6 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_7 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_8 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_9 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_10 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_11 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_12 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_13 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_14 - -
/dev/chassis/RACKABLE-SE3016/BAY_15 - -

If I run the commands with '-v' I see:

root@nas:~# croinfo -v
date Thu Jun 28 12:10:12 2012
server-id nas
product-id UNKNOWN
chassis-id UNKNOWN
chksum 283fe60cd1a:188a8678d53e2f:9f629b9d3c582e38:88f7a13b9a8d7365

Is there any way to get this to work?
 
Hmmm, I wonder if this only works for SAS drives? I have a 2.5" SAS drive I can put in an adapter and slide into a slot when I get home and see what I see...
 
danswartz said:
Hmmm, I wonder if this only works for SAS drives? I have a 2.5" SAS drive I can put in an adapter and slide into a slot when I get home and see what I see...
Click to expand...

on mine, I put 16 SATA Drives. Seagate/Samsung/WD


you can not put 2.5 drive on the tray directly, need a simple converter 2.5 to 3.5 or drill holes to match 2,5 drive ( tricky, but doable..:p, 2.5 and 3.5 HD templates are needed).
 
Yeah, I know. I have an Icy Dock adapter, but it won't allow SAS drives :( I have a cable with separate SATA power and data connectors at one end, and a unitary SAS connector at the other. I may plug that into the internal Icy Dock connector, plug the other end into the SAS drive, and just lay it in the adapter. I don't care if it isn't fastened down - this is only to find out if the enclosure stuff is not showing drives because of SATA vs SAS.
 
That was it! Got a 73GB SAS drive in and:

D:devchassis-path c:eek:ccupant-compdev
------------------------------ ---------------------
/dev/chassis/SE3016/BAY_7/disk disk c6t5000CCA00B078F2Dd0

and

D:devchassis-path t:eek:ccupant-type c:eek:ccupant-compdev
------------------------------ --------------- ---------------------
/dev/chassis/SE3016/BAY_7/disk disk c6t5000CCA00B078F2Dd0
 
Hmmm.

Worked with SAS or SATA and a SSD

Maybe the controller makes a difference also... Mine were 1068e based.... Are yours 2008 based cards?

.
 
A m1015. Possibly the sata drives are too old? I have a 256GB SSD M4 coming in for L2ARC so we will see if that is seen.
 
m1015 should be OK.
sata drive to old? hmmm.


this the list of all my drives in SE3016 by running "lsscsi -g" on linux

.....
[8:1:28:0] disk ST350032 0AS SD1A - /dev/sg6
[8:1:29:0] disk ST500DM0 02-1BC142 JC4B - /dev/sg7
[8:1:30:0] disk ST350032 0AS SD1A - /dev/sg8
[8:1:31:0] disk ST500DM0 02-1BC142 JC4B - /dev/sg9
[8:1:32:0] disk ST500DM0 02-1BD142 KC44 - /dev/sg10
[8:1:33:0] disk ST350063 0AS E - /dev/sg11
[8:1:34:0] disk Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 A580 - /dev/sg12
[8:1:35:0] disk Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 A580 - /dev/sg13
[8:1:36:0] disk SAMSUNG HD204UI 0001 - /dev/sg14
[8:1:37:0] disk SAMSUNG HD204UI 0001 - /dev/sg15
[8:1:38:0] disk Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 A39C - /dev/sg16
[8:1:39:0] disk Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 A39C - /dev/sg17
[8:1:40:0] disk Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 A39C - /dev/sg18
[8:1:41:0] disk WDC WD10EADS-00P8B0 0A01 - /dev/sg19
[8:1:42:0] disk WDC WD10EADS-00P8B0 0A01 - /dev/sg20
[8:1:43:0] disk WDC WD10EADS-00P8B0 0A01 - /dev/sg21
[8:3:0:0] enclosu RACKABLE ES3016-SAS 0102 - /dev/sg22
.....

ST350032 0AS is the oldest HD that I put to SE3016

--------------------
did you power on the SE3016 first and let all the HDs are powering on, before turn on your machine/server? just curious.
 
Yes, the SE3016 is on 24x7. Anyway, I just pulled the SAS drive and hot-plugged a 160GB 2.5 SATA drive. It doesn't show up either.
 
I know my setup is basically the opposite of yours, but with 2 of the 3016s daisy chained to my ARC-1320-8x it exposes all drives to Windows 7, as well as passes SMART data and temps. Basically all I needed. The CLI for the Areca card can see the expanders/enclosures but doesn't see drives, doesn't really matter to me since I know what drives are where. Would be nice though if it was more functional in that aspect, but since I'm a FlexRAID user, all I needed was more drives and hotswap. These fit the bill perfectly for that.
 
Just an observation: sometimes hot-plugging doesn't work (at least with Areca 1880x). When you hot-plug drives into the chassis, the drives show up as as "Failed" state. However, if you reboot then the drives would show up.
 
Based on my experience, the 3Gbps SAS expander in this enclosure is only capable of about 1000MB/s...far less then what 16 spindles can drive (e.g. ~2000MB/s).

I really like the fact that these are enclosures are half-depth...providing the potential of stuffing 32 drives in 3U...that's almost identical density to the Supermicro SC847 (45 drives in 4U)...all for about 1/3rd the price.

What this enclosure really needs is a better expander...has anyone through of replacing it with a higher performance expander like:

* Astek A33606
* Chenbro
..or something else...Ideally one that supports SAS Multiplexing (like the PMC 8005 in the HP Sas Expander) *and* that can actually push upwards of 2000MB/s??
 
Interesting thought! I only have two sata drives (mirrored root pool) and 4 1TB SAS drives in a 2x2 mirror, so the bandwidth limitation hasn't bothered me. I do find the *front* connector for the 8088 cable annoying though :)
 
Was about to buy one of these due to the shallow depth but seeing the limitations of
1. SATA 3G
2. Having to mod the rear to reduce noise
3. Bypass the expander to avoid ZFS issues

I'm thinking I'll just save for a Norco and be done with it. Anyone here modded these to address those 3 issues successfully?
 
I've disconnected the expander from the drive backplanes and then am using using (4) SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 cables to wire the backplanes directly to my LSI-9205-8e HBAs. This is technically working great, however as there is no holes in the back of the JBOD, there's not real way to route the cables out of the enclosure without leaving the cover ajar..which is just a real mess. This could probably be rectified with a bit of dremel work.

My other problem with this approach is it consumes a lot of HBA ports and the blade servers I'm using only have 2 x4 Wide ports available, thus limiting me to connecting 8 drives to each system this way. I would prefer an expander that map 16 drives to one x4 6Gbps wide port.
 
coolrunnings said:
Was about to buy one of these due to the shallow depth but seeing the limitations of
1. SATA 3G
2. Having to mod the rear to reduce noise
3. Bypass the expander to avoid ZFS issues

I'm thinking I'll just save for a Norco and be done with it. Anyone here modded these to address those 3 issues successfully?
Click to expand...

1) should be OK, unless you need to use SSD
2)replace two fans with slower RPM or 120mm (like mine) with 1600RPM.
3) Do not know, I never try using expander with ZFS. I connect this enclosure to adaptec raid card without issues aka running smoothly.

the most hated feature is "SFF-8088 connector on the front!!",:p
 
Volkum said:
Countersunk 6-32x1/4" is perfect (that's what I use on all my hot swap carriers).
Click to expand...

I looked around online trying to find these screws, and ordered some. They don't mount flush to the hard drive. Does anyone have a source they can link for these?
 
Falcon4287 said:
I looked around online trying to find these screws, and ordered some. They don't mount flush to the hard drive. Does anyone have a source they can link for these?
Click to expand...

I bought from ebay. cek enclosure seller, they may have some to sell!

or

I bookmarked a site that seeling screws, they are selling on ebay too
 
Falcon4287 said:
I looked around online trying to find these screws, and ordered some. They don't mount flush to the hard drive. Does anyone have a source they can link for these?
Click to expand...

Here you go: (Pick one)
http://discountechnology.com/Counter-Sunk-Screws-6-32-x-0-25-for-Dell-trays-x-100
http://discountechnology.com/Counte...25-with-100-degree-angle-for-Dell-trays-x-100

I ordered both as I wasn't sure which angle I needed and I was shipping to Canada so didn't want to have to order twice - however BOTH fit just fine and screw flush.
 
Hi guys, first time poster here.

I've been looking at ways to expand the storage on my server for quite some time now and this SAS Expander Enclosure is still available (mrrackables has a couple different listings up for it still). I currently have a Dell Precision 470 that I use as a server. It has two free slots that I could use when connecting to the enclosure.

The prec470 has:

a) PCIe 8x slot (Operates at 4x speed) I'm also guessing that this is a PCIe 1.0 slot, given that this is circa 2005 era.

b) PCI-X 100 MHz slot

Given these two options, can someone recommend a good SAS Controller card to use in conjunction with this Expander enclosure? Also, which would be the better option (Faster, better data speeds, etc).

The PCIe controller card would likely be easier to find on ebay these days, but I'm curious to see if a PCI-X card would still be a valid choice.
 
^^^
if you are still keeping a server with PCI-X: buy PCI-X where a lot cheaper than PCI-Express card.
still old technology, but it works. Please do not expect performance as current PCI-Express card
 
Well, that depends if he has any other pcix cards, as they will share.

A pcix card will probably max out at 500MB/sec, and if your sharing that bus with other things, dual/quad gigabit nic, it will be lower.

A pcie slot normally isn't shared, so your going have at most 800MB/sec speeds from that slot, but it won't be contending for time (unless that motherboard is really setup oddly).
 
The layout on the motherboard has one PCIe 8x (at 4x speeds as previously mentioned) and one PCI-X slot. I'm not sure if the PCI-X bus is shared with any other components. There is only one NIC (Gigabit), and I'm not using any expansion cards except a PCIe x16 video card (Which should have a dedicated bus, nothing to do with the PCI-X one).

Another question, with the SE3016 enclosure, if I wanted to achieve the 6GB/s speeds with the enclosure, could I not bypass the built-in expander and route the backplane/connections to a different or external expander?

[edit] I will likely end up getting a PCIe card for this, as they seem to be way easier to find on eBay. I CAN find PCI-X SAS/Raid cards on eBay, but I'm not sure if they will support expanders, since it's often not listed on the ebay listings.
 
dalekphalm said:
Another question, with the SE3016 enclosure, if I wanted to achieve the 6GB/s speeds with the enclosure, could I not bypass the built-in expander and route the backplane/connections to a different or external expander?
Click to expand...

You stil likely have a 3Gbps SAS *backplane*...so even if you replace the expander with a 6Gbps expander the connections to the backplane/drives will only do 3Gbps. Now, with a 6Gbps expander, you'll get a 6Gbps uplink to your HBA/RAID card, HOWEVER, whether you will get *effective* 6Gbps throughput on the link depends on whether the expander supports a feature called "SAS Multiplexing".

see: SAS 6Gb/3Gb Link Rate Matching (without reinventing the link layer)
ftp://ftp.t10.org/t10/document.05/05-430r0.pdf

With Multiplexing, you get full use of the 6Gbps link. Without it, pad frames are injected for every other data frame..yes, you send data on the uplink at 6Gbps, but 50% of the traffic is empty pad frames, still leaving you with 3Gbps effective.

See my previous posts, this is exactly what I'm looking to do, but replacing the expander with something like these:


Intel RES2CV240:
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/r2000gz-gl/sb/CS-033145.htm

Chenbro CK22803
http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=215

AStek A33606:
http://www.astekcorp.com/serial-attached-scsi-expanders/a33606-pci


All three of those use LSI-based expander chipsets...each that I *believe* are capable of SAS Multiplexing...however, the big question is whether that functionality is actually *implemented*.
 
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Thanks for the info packetboy! Let us all know if you figure out whether the multiplexing works with one of those expanders. For the time being I'm just going to pick up the SE3016 by itself and grab a SAS controller in PCIe format (Likely one of the verified ones posted on here) while I'm at it. The PCI-X ones are hard to find and the price savings isn't THAT much less.
 
coolrunnings said:
Was about to buy one of these due to the shallow depth but seeing the limitations of
1. SATA 3G
2. Having to mod the rear to reduce noise
3. Bypass the expander to avoid ZFS issues

I'm thinking I'll just save for a Norco and be done with it. Anyone here modded these to address those 3 issues successfully?
Click to expand...

When these boxes first cropped up on ebay for peanuts my first impression was that something smelled foul but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Cooling/airflow definitely seems inadequate and I presumed the expander would be a SAS-1 gen which you want to stay away from for various reasons - a lot of the problems and compatibility issues between SAS-1 gen controller and expanders didn't really get fixed until SAS-2.
 
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odditory said:
When these boxes first cropped up on ebay for peanuts my first impression was that something smelled foul but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Cooling/airflow definitely seems inadequate and I presumed the expander would be a SAS-1 gen which you want to stay away from for various reasons - a lot of the problems and compatibility issues between SAS-1 gen controller and expanders didn't really get fixed until SAS-2.
Click to expand...

I bought one , months back.
this is indeed SAS1

on my understanding after running 24/7 in months:
1) Airflow is adequate (replace High-RPM fan with 1600RPM 120mm fans :), I was monitoring HD temperature for a month. the other replacement was psu fan with 3000RPM.
2) the transfer rate is not really good, as already discuss in this thread.
3)as long as just for serving (nothing fancy confuguration), SAS1 should be ok
4) temperature sensor is off of scale heheh. I always get "critical" warning temperature (linux sg_ses command to query SE3016 information)

one consideration is replacing SAS1 to SAS2 expander card, such as Intel ( already mention in this thread)
 
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