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SAS Expanders and HBAs

B

Blue0ctober

n00b
Joined
Jul 22, 2013
Messages
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Hi All!

I recently purchased a SGI Rackable S5000PSL which includes a 3ware 9650se-12ml. I was interested in also picking up a Rackable Systems SE3016-SAS-AC.

My question is what are my options, HBA/RAID controller wise, to support 12 internal drives + an external 16 bay DAS.

My initial thought was to use something like an HP SAS Expander internally on the server using a PCI-E Express 1x to 16x Extender Adapter Riser Card with some type of RAID or HBA card. I'm thinking maybe a low profile LSI card might work best and just use a short cable to route it internally to the HP SAS Expander?

This is going to be used for a ZFS storage server, handling some media and files/backups/etc. I'd like to be able to use SATA III drives and utilize 3+ TB drives with it.

Any suggestions on what I could do to get this to work?
 
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SO, I just finished setting up my storage PC using one of those HP SAS Expanders. My setup is a IBM M5015 RAID adapter (rebadged LSI) with an internal cable (that's too long) to the HP SAS expander, then SATA breakout cables to my drives. I only actually plan to ever use 8 drives at any given time, which would plug natively into the M5015, but I've got the expander in the mix so that I can temporarily connect 16 drives to allow the migration from one array to another when the time comes. Plus, you know, coolness factor.

As far as I know, the HP SAS Expander only uses it's PCIe connection for power, so I would think a riser would work, but I cannot speak to it authoritatively.

My M5015 and HP SAS expander are currently handling 8x8TB drives in RAID6. You wouldn't be using the RAID if you're running ZFS, so you'd want to run it like a HBA rather than a RAID card, which I presume you could do. You want ZFS to handle all the parity calculations and cacheing, or you don't want to use ZFS; you do *not* want RAID + ZFS, that's a bad idea.
 
i agree with sinisterDei the last thing you want to buy is a raid controller.

you need a card that just presents the drives to the os

dell PERC h310 in IT mode.

or an LSI 9211
 
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