Connecting a 60 bay JBOD

[SpazzyC]

Hi ya All,
Hopefully this is an easy one.

At work I have a SuperMicro SSG-6049P-E1CR60L 60 bay system, filled with 12 TB Seagate drives, running TrueNAS core. (5x12 Z2)
I have filled the server enough that I need to expand.
Right now I'm set to order a CSE-947SE2C-R1K66JBOD, another 60 bay chassis.

Can someone suggest what card+cables I should use to connect the units together?

Thank you

 

[jgreco]

Supermicro won't let you ("isn't supposed to let you") order that chassis unpopulated, although some resellers might let you buy it that way.

I believe that they only want to put SAS HDD's in those.

If you are able to arrange a config with SATA HDD's, the secondary SAS channel is useless, and you just need a SAS3 MiniSAS HD external cable like CBL-SAST-0573-01 to connect the JBOD. The JBOD should already be wired for that. You would need a SAS expander with external ports (or AOM-SAS3-8I8E-LP internal-to-external adapter) to connect to the server; Supermicro makes the AOC-SAS3-9300-8E and LSI makes the LSI00343 SAS 9300-8e which should be functionally equivalent, but I haven't laid hands on these, so this is sorta hypothetical and "do your own homework pls". Also you need to make sure they are flashed to the appropriate IT firmware for FreeNAS/TrueNAS.

An HBA with external ports obviously connects directly (and only) to the external JBOD. You can also use two cables for better bandwidth, but, 12Gbps times four lanes (a single cable) is 48Gbps and your typical HDD is only capable of maybe 2Gbps, so that would only come into play if you were really pushing the thing, which isn't likely with seeks and all that.

If you are going SAS, then two HBA's and multipath may be a better choice, but only if you are already using multipath successfully, IMO.

If you have not seen the SAS Primer, it's a good time to walk thru it. I don't think there's a ton of relevant stuff in there for you, but, just for refresher's sake...