Need some hardware help with Supermicro server purchase

A

ashman

Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
Messages
811
I am looking at getting a Supermicro 6047R-E1R36N but I have zero familiarity with Supermicro. The board inside the system is apparently a DA0S50MB8D which seems to be a decent but older dual xeon board, it comes with two quad core CPU's and 52GB of RAM, no drives but 24 sleds. I want to run it as a JBOD server, but the board apparently doesn't do JBOD, so I am curious about how I would physically connect a couple of SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 to the backplane, or is that not the best idea? What kind of cable am I looking for? I currently have an Areca 1280 SATA raid controller that does do JBOD, but its breakout cables are for individual SATA ports which I don't think are going to work with this Supermicro backplane. I emailed Supermicro support about lager than 2TB drive support and they said the backplane is fine for larger drives.

Thoughts? Suggestions? What do I need?
 
It turns out Supermicro tech support is very friendly, even to those like me, who want to buy their gear used. According the tech who's been emailing me, I should be good with my SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 card to get all 36 drives to show up as JBOD, he explained the connectors on the backplane with a diagram and I think I just need this cable http://www.ebay.ca/itm/162276758997?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT to connect the backplane to the card. Sound about right?
 
Do yourself a favor and buy it from monoprice or some other vendor where you can be sure of the source for about a buck more and get a cable from a company with more consistent quality. Some of the eBay cables that profess to be HP OEM haven't been in the past. Bad or marginal SAS cables can create problems that can be exceptionally hard to pin down.
 
chassis details are better displayed at chassis not system pages: https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/847/SC847E16-R1K28LP.cfm. Most of the midplanes/raid cards do have miniSAS interface, so if that was also confirmed by supermicro rep, you should be good with the cable from your link. Information you should also check is how many ports there will be in the midplane - E16: Expander supports SAS2 (6Gb/s) - so its single port.
 
ashman said:
I am looking at getting a Supermicro 6047R-E1R36N but I have zero familiarity with Supermicro. The board inside the system is apparently a DA0S50MB8D which seems to be a decent but older dual xeon board, it comes with two quad core CPU's and 52GB of RAM, no drives but 24 sleds. I want to run it as a JBOD server, but the board apparently doesn't do JBOD, so I am curious about how I would physically connect a couple of SUPERMICRO AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 to the backplane, or is that not the best idea? What kind of cable am I looking for? I currently have an Areca 1280 SATA raid controller that does do JBOD, but its breakout cables are for individual SATA ports which I don't think are going to work with this Supermicro backplane. I emailed Supermicro support about lager than 2TB drive support and they said the backplane is fine for larger drives.

Thoughts? Suggestions? What do I need?
Click to expand...
Some of the SuperMicro servers you would have to create a RAID 0 virtual disk for each separate hard drive if you want to run JBOD (which is the same thing). SM is great for some things but they have waaaaaaaaaaaaay to many choices. It's hard for me to keep track of everything.
 
I got the server got it up and running, I am using a single SAS2LP HBA to support 30 drives, its running ok, but the parity check on unRAID is slow with speeds no faster then 60MB/s so its taking two days to run on my 107TB array. Before on my old server I was using an Areca 16 port SATA RAID controller in JBOD mode (in a 16x slot) and the same SAS2LP controller (also in a 16x slot) and I would get speeds just over 100MB/s on a parity check. When I started the parity check on the Supermicro, I had the SAS2LP in the only 16x slot on this intel board S5500HCV but someone pointed out that the 16x slot actually runs at 4x electrically, so I changed the SAS2LP card to an 8x slot, but still the speeds aren't faster then 60MB/s. I am wondering if I get a second SAS2LP and plug the rear backplene into it ( I only have six drives on the back) if that will speeds up the parity check? Thoughts? Can I get a faster HBA?
 
So the parity check passed, the 8TB drive that had been my second parity disk completed one preclear pass without any issues. It turns out that guys in the unRAID forums believe my parity check speeds have to do with the fact that I was using an i5 2500 before that has faster single thread performance than the dual Xeon E5620's I am using now. Not sure whether to put that 8TB disk back in as a second parity drive or as a data drive.
 
Looks like there is a major incompatability with this SAS2LP HBA and the supermicro backplane. I came into my office yesterday morning to find error messages on the console of the monitor attached to the server with errors like:

Error:pD Not Ready or Unknown Device Type [FAILED] and bunch of times and then at the bottom of the screen it said in RED Warning - Something wrong with adapter, Press Any Key to escape BIOS.

I've ordered a Dell H310 which I will flash into IT mode which should resolve the incompatibility issues.
 
Got my Dell H310, flashed it with Dell IT firmware, added my second parity disk back and its almost halfway done a parity check/sync, time will tell.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top