Direct Attached Storage: what would I need for it?

[kitonowo]

Hi,

I'm a total noob when it comes to "enterprise" (dc) hardware and peripherals. So I know that I want to extend my NAS capacity, and I could install one of those fancy LSI controllers. There's no space inside anymore, that's why I'm looking for an external solution. From the SAS basics thread, I take one cable feeds two SATA disks... but the controller 9200-8E has two outputs, and I'm still not sure how enclosures work (do they have multiple inputs?) and if they are available in non-rack variants (I don't have a rack installation and don't plan for one) - and of course, the price tag.

Can you help me out?

 

[Dice]

Can you help me out?

1. What's your use case?
2. What hardware do you have that you intend to reuse?

 

[kitonowo]

use case? I have a 4 bay HP micro (gen8), which I consider too small. But feature wise, it's great, so I want to keep and extend it.

 

[Chris Moore]

I take one cable feeds two SATA disks...

Not really. You can run 256 drives from a single SAS controller by way of using SAS Expanders. Each of the two ports on the card you mentioned has 4 'lanes' of SAS connectivity. If you just use breakout cables, that would limit you to only connecting 8 drives, on per lane, but you can connect one of those 4 lane interfaces to a SAS expander and run 12, 16 or 24 drives off it and most SAS expanders will allow you to cascade to another SAS expander to continue the process.

We can give you more guidance if you can better describe your situation and where you want to go.

You probably want an "IT-Mode HBA" like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9207-8...TA-External-ZFS-JBOD-IT-Mode-HBA/162563989119
It doesn't have to be that exact one, but one like it...

Then you will want a SAS cable like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/External-M...F-8088-Cable-Mini-SAS-26P-3FT-1M/191951449698

to connect from the port on the back of the card to the input on the back of the external enclosure:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/8-bay-6G-S...pander-compare-to-Areca-ARC-4036/252561368016

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. If you are willing to stand a rack mount unit on it's side, you can have a more capable drive enclosure for about the same money.

 

[kitonowo]

You probably want an "IT-Mode HBA" like this one:

Acknowledging my thoughts, fine :) I'd probably forgotten the cable, so thanks for that one.

The areca-like enclosure would fit my expectations (although it's a little pricey... maybe I'll find used ones..). Not sure about the rack mount - aren't those generally rather noisy? I don't have a cellar to put my storage in (that would possibly open up the rack solution space), and while I would find space for it (especially on its side), I fear a constant noise generator in my flat. TBH, I was never even in reach of a rack mount DAS without a server running next to it. Feel free to call BS on my fear. The gen8 isn't exactly "silent" as well, but I almost can't hear it from the next room.

We can give you more guidance if you can better describe your situation and where you want to go.

Too many ideas, depending how specific you want me to be - given the topic of the thread works out for me, the software side won't need a change (linux, mdadm software raid). I would like to raise parity disks to RAID6, but I don't need help for that.
The more disks I can attach, the better (with some kind of soft cap for the performance, I guess - must feed memory ;) ) - and with the controller separated, I can always choose to change from the small cube to something stronger, eg. big tower with a Xeon inside, maybe some workstation build with ECC, or server boards fitting for (E)ATX from supermicro. Adding 200% to my current slots is a great improvement already.

edit: side note for the above offer on ebay.com: I assume I won't be able to order this to the EU. There's no detail about the manufacturer or anything, and my attempts to find something similar on this continent have been added to the other failures to search for "sas enclosures". sadface.
edit2: found their website, and apart from different models I got a price tag on shipment... $200 is a bit much.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'm sure that you can find similar parts available online from eBay Europe. None of these parts are unique to the United States

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk