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need help with flex raid server

J

jbates58

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Joined
Aug 13, 2012
Messages
29
hi all

i am wanting to set up a flex raid server using 24 drives. but i cant find any info if flexraid is compatable with the card that i want to use. im using this card purely to get my 24 port expansion. the card is a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117207 and im looking at expanding it into a norco 4224. will flex raid work with that card? or have i chosen the wrong thing? im running flex raid under my windows 7 os, and i am looking at putting all my pc componants into the norco. i would also like the raid to expand off that card if possible. so can i plug a cable from the intel sas card into an expander of sorts to gain more ports? then run that to another norco?

cheers

jbates58
 
The expander will not work by itself. You have to connect at least one of the 6 channels to the SAS HBA. The PCIe connector is solely for power, but the molex can be used instead (but not simultaneously). Just have a look into the manual also available on the Intel site for cabling examples. The expander usually comes with all cabling needed, but if it is missing you can buy an SFF-8087 cable. The compatibility question is not easily answered. Basically the drives and the SAS HBA have to be compatible with the expander. FlexRAID does not directly communicate with the expander. It acts like a switch for SAS signals. And yes, expanders can be daisy-chained.
 
i see. in that case then, what card should i use? i just want something that plugs into one of my pci slots, and has sas ports on it to interface to the norco. that way, i get to keep the 10 sata ports on my motherboard aswell for a collective 34 drives. as this will also serve as my computer tower, i would like it to spin down the drives etc to save power and i will be installing better fans as i have read that they make a huge difference.

cheerd

jbates58
 
The cheapest way is probably 3 SAS HBAs like the IBM M1015, but you need 3 x8 physical (and I would say at least x4 electrical) PCIe slots. If you have less PCIe slots you will have to use a single HBA and an expander with sufficient ports. Some people here have good experience with the HP expander (36 ports), but I could not get it to negotiate 3.0 Gbps with my drives.

EDIT: The adaptec card is a RAID card, those are not optimal for drive pooling solutions like flexraid. You want a controller that presents single drives to the OS, whether the Adaptec controller can do that needs more research. You could easily get a new mainboard with enough PCIe slots and the 3 HBAs for that price.
 
Last edited:
my mainboard is a gigabyte-x58a- ud5.

i have 2x pcie x1
1x pcie x16 (i would perfer not to use this if possible, as my gpu is rught above it and i dont want there to be any air restriction, unless the card is fairly short say, ~150MM long)
1x pci slot
1x pcie x8

CPU: i7-960
ram: 6GB Tri Chanel
GPU: GTX580
PSU: thermaltake toughpower xt 875 (should be sufficent for my needs)
and an after market cpu heatsink

im after the neatest solution to this. aswell as the most cost effective, as this will also serve as my pc, noise an heat are also factors.

cheers

jbates58
 
kac77 said:
That's an enterprise grade Raid HBA. You wouldn't need flexraid with something like this. You can do way cheaper than that card if Flexraid is what you want.
Click to expand...

i want flex raid as i can expand it by adding more drives to the array at will. so i have no need for hardware raid.

cheers

jbates58
 
It's less expensive to get separate stuff. There is no controller that can directly handle many ports, when you see cards with many ports it's a combo controller + expander. A controller only card associated with an expander is cheaper. Common here are IBM M1015 cards and HP expanders.
 
so, i go from the LSI LSI00244 to something like the intel?

therefore, i could have 4 norco cases and have a sas backpanel connector of some sort, and then run 3 ports to the backpanel of the case, and the 1st to the intel (or another) expander. and then, if i get another norco, i can get another expander and run the cable from the primary case to the 2 norco? and as the norco has 6 sas backplanes, i would need an expander with 7 ports? is that correct? one for each backplane, and then to uplink it to the controller card?

cheers

jbates58
 
You'd do well to read some of the other threads discussing storage server builds during your info gathering journey - the information is all here, its been addressed 1000x.
 
jbates58 said:
i see. in that case then, what card should i use? i just want something that plugs into one of my pci slots, and has sas ports on it to interface to the norco. that way, i get to keep the 10 sata ports on my motherboard aswell for a collective 34 drives.
Click to expand...

Bear in mind that the Intel expander card has 24 ports in total, but some of them are used for input from the raid card - you'll only be able to connect 16 or 20 drives (depending on whether you use use one or two of the six 8087 ports for connection to the raid card!

Connecting up this many drives starts to get expensive real fast - and may not be as straightforward as it appears on the surface - you can run into issues combining different manufacturers products with expanders etc!

Have you considered running 2 or 3 smaller servers instead?
I'd certainly consider separation of the server and your main desktop machine at least!
 
upon looking around the net this morning, i stumbled across this: a gigabyte A-X79S-UP5-WIFI

it has 8 onboard SAS ports. would that work with the norco 4224? the sas ports on the mobo look like sata ports. but i cant seem to find a decent pic of the sas ports on the norco backplanes.

and i would perfer to keep it in the same box, as thats less to worry about interms of cost and its a neater solution.

i am happy to buy another mobo and cpu as it will be an upgrade to my current system. aslong as it is still a decent gaming machine (i have no need for overclocking) and can run this server, than thats all i need.

cheers

jbates58
 
after some more searching, i found this: HighPoint DC7280 http://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/DC7280/DC7280_DS.pdf

would that work with my current mobo?
would that connect directly to the sas backplanes of the norco( i think it should using SSF-8087-SSF-8087 cables)
as this has 8 SSF-8087 ports, and i would use 6 in the norco, could i then run a cable from the hba to an expander in another norco allowing more drives?(i think that will work)

in theory, i could run 8 norcos from this correct? just run an expander off each port of the HBA. is that correct?

cheers

jbates58
 
While SATA drives work on SAS expanders (well, not always), SAS expanders will not work on SATA HBAs. You'll have to get an SAS HBA for that.

Just from the looks of the Highpoint card it is either a PCIe bridge with 8 4-port SATA controllers (a nightmare) or a 8-port controller with 8 port multipliers (not much better). Lets assume the latter, I expect that you run in severe bandwidth limitations when simultaneous access to all drives is required (i.e. parity rebuild). I would not buy such a card. The best solution for you is IMHO a 8-port SAS HBA and an SAS expander or a new mainboard.
 
In the context of SATA drives, an SAS (often miniSAS) port means 4 drives. The gigabyte A-X79S-UP5-WIFI has 2 miniSAS just like the IBM M1015 HBA, so without expander that's 8 drives not 24 or 32.
 
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