Dell R710 with TrueNas Scale external storage.

[Squicman]

I'm building a TrueNas Scale server on an old Dell R710 with 2.5 backplane. Obviously limited expandibility. I'd like to use an external enclosure for 3.5" drives. I've found SAS controllers with external connections and also some external drive enclosures. Has anyone gone this route or found a betterway?
Thanks

 

[HoneyBadger]

Hi Squicman,

This is the common way to expand server storage beyond what a single chassis will accept.

You'll need to make sure you're buying a "External HBA" and not a "RAID Controller" - I've linked a useful article below about why this is important, as well as a resource with a couple of videos from someone's who done this before and documented their efforts.

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

Expanding FreeNAS Beyond a Single Chassis

These videos cover how I expanded my FreeNAS system into a second chassis and some of the challenges faced during such an expansion. The basic idea is pretty simple and could be implemented in just about any storage system for a pretty reasonable...

www.truenas.com

If you need a refresher on SAS cabling and expansion behavior, you can also check here:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop...

www.truenas.com

What are your goals for this build? You have a mix of 2.5" and 3.5" which offers you easy options to potentially leverage SSD's if you would benefit.

 

[Squicman]

Thanks for the reply. The current controller is an H700 which won't work, so I'll replace that with an H200 or similar. I wasn't sure about a second HBA for the external enclosure but that appears doable. Thanks for the links, they will be invaluable during my build.
My goals are to use the server for VM s and containers as well as for storage. Scale seems to be up to the task. I'm planning to run Home Assistant, Video servailance, and converge the backups from all sources.
Thanks