Adaptec ASR-71605 not seeing SSD over SAS

[damjank]

Hello my friends,

perhaps I can get answer here faster than anywhere. I have small TrueNAS box. Inside I have put Adaptec ASR-71605 controller, configured in HBA mode. Now I have connected to it 6 drives, all 6TB SATA drives. They are visible and all working perfectly. Now I wanted to add additional disk to be used for cache. I have bought Huawei Enterprise SSD: Huawei ES3000 V5 SAS SSD (https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/doc/EDOC1100030818/a2b8a6cc/es3600s-v5-specifications). I have bought this cable: SFF-8643 to SFF 8639 Cable, 12Gbps Mini SAS HD Cable, Internal Mini SAS SFF 8643 to U.2 SFF 8639 Cable with 15Pin SATA Power Socket (CableCreation SFF-8643 to SFF 8639 Cable, 12Gbps Mini SAS HD Cable, Internal Mini SAS SFF 8643 to U.2 SFF 8639 Cable with 15Pin SATA Power Socket 50cm 3.3ft https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07D8NCSXM...t_i_A4PZHENPMW9XFKMMXP1B?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1)

Now I got everything connected, the SATA power, the SAS3.0 connector to drive, fist perfectly, the SFF on the Adaptec, all clicked. I have checked power cable, it is working. BUT - Adaptec is not detecting drive. Now is that due to Adaptec not supporting this kind of drive or this kind of connection or the cable is just plain bad. Any thought on this? Anyone with similar or even same issues? Any idea how to proceed? Different cable? Different controller? I really want to use this disk as it is quite a little performer. Thank you in advance, appreciate it!

rgD

 

[jgreco]

Yup, the following article was written for folks in your situation:

https://www.truenas.com/community/t...s-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.81931/

 

[damjank]

@jgreco well following that original post, coming to next: https://www.truenas.com/community/t...rimer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/post-270217 it seems that I have wrong cable? the Adaptec connector, being the SFF-8643 is OK but the other end, it should not be the SFF-8639 but rather SFF-8482 (SAS8482 - SAS HDD)? Can you confirm what I discovered? :D

 

[jgreco]

SFF-8639 is U.2. U.2 should theoretically be SAS-compatible on a system that provides a SAS controller; the connectors were designed specifically to allow the same sort of interop that allows a SATA drive to be plugged into a SAS backplane slot.

The thing I would *think* that you would be missing is that your typical SFF-8643 cable can be broken out into four SFF-8482, as it is a four-lane cable, but for U.2 that would all get routed to a single device. I'm not sure if a breakout cable is even a possibility there, I don't think I've ever seen one.

So I would kinda think your cables would work for SAS, but at the cost of losing 3/4ths of your SAS device capabilities.

 

[damjank]

Interesting point. Well I will try with regular SAS sable, so from SFF-8643 (that is on Adaptec) to 4x SFF-8482 that will connect to one drive. Theoretically, a SAS connected drive should work, I know of U.2 cable "optimisations" but as you stated, there could be some culprit going on there, perhaps even the Adaptec is not best controller for this but I know that it accepts SAS drives on regular SAS cables. I will order cable and report back here for findings (just as soon as it arrives - there seems to be quite a delay for cables :S).
Thanks for now, I learned much and will definitely post findings for others.
rgD

 

[damjank]

Hello,

reporting back. Ordering (and much waiting) the SAS3 cable, that I was mentioning in my previous post did the trick. Now I can see disk correctly, it operates within expected parameters. Crazy. I can only shout out - cables cables cables. Thanks everyone for helping and good luck to other readers.

rgD

 

[Johnnie Black]

I have bought this cable: SFF-8643 to SFF 8639 Cable

Yeah, this cable is for 2.5" U.2 NVMe devices, it won't work with SAS devices.