Expanding the number of POOL drives to 8

[clusty]

My current TrueNAS server is a Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F : https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/A2SDi-4C-HLN4F . The total number of drives supported is 8 in this case.
Currently I am using 4x HDDs and 2xUSD thumdrives for booting.

What I am trying to do is add 4 more drives to the storage pool, and I don't fully understand the "Number of Drives" limitation on my motherboard. If I got it right, USB HDDs and PCI-E all count for the total 8 SATA supported drives?

Does this mean I could get an PCI-E HBA card that supports at least 8 disks and connect all the disk there? (AOC-S2308L-L8e for example)

 

[jgreco]

No, you don't have it right, but we'll set you straight here, never fear!

You have 8 SATA ports. One yellow one that supports SATA-DOM, three white ones that are just SATA, and four more on the black SFF-8643 header, which you would need an SAS breakout cable to use. Supermicro should have included a CBL-SAST-0616 in the box to break those out for you.

The PCIe slot looks like it is maybe an open-ended PCIe x4 slot. If so, you could drop an LSI HBA into that (it's an x8 card) and then you can support 8 more drives directly, or hundreds through the use of SAS expanders. If it isn't an open-ended slot, then you're stuck with finding a decent SATA expansion card to add a few more ports. Avoid the ones with SATA port multipliers.

Adding USB disks is not recommended, and USB thumb drives are known to burn out over time. If your case only has room for 8 drives, and I'm kinda assuming that this is 8 3.5" LFF drives, then you could consider using the 8 onboard ports (which are likely to be your "best" well-connected high quality ports) for HDD's, and then something like an Asmedia ASM1062 or 1064 based controller for boot SSD's (and maybe jail SSD's). SSD's today are very small ---

courtesy of our friends at StorageReview -- so even if you do not have room for some "full sized" 2.5" SSD's, you could always de-caseify them and stickytape them somewhere convenient. For that reason, it might be worth looking to see if you can find a 4 port SATA controller. Same trick will work with an LSI HBA, but that assumes the PCIe connector is open-ended.

 

[Jailer]

Looks like you will need a breakout cable for the additional 4 drives.

 

[clusty]

No, you don't have it right, but we'll set you straight here, never fear!

You have 8 SATA ports. One yellow one that supports SATA-DOM, three white ones that are just SATA, and four more on the black SFF-8643 header, which you would need an SAS breakout cable to use. Supermicro should have included a CBL-SAST-0616 in the box to break those out for you.

The PCIe slot looks like it is maybe an open-ended PCIe x4 slot. If so, you could drop an LSI HBA into that (it's an x8 card) and then you can support 8 more drives directly, or hundreds through the use of SAS expanders. If it isn't an open-ended slot, then you're stuck with finding a decent SATA expansion card to add a few more ports. Avoid the ones with SATA port multipliers.

Adding USB disks is not recommended, and USB thumb drives are known to burn out over time. If your case only has room for 8 drives, and I'm kinda assuming that this is 8 3.5" LFF drives, then you could consider using the 8 onboard ports (which are likely to be your "best" well-connected high quality ports) for HDD's, and then something like an Asmedia ASM1062 or 1064 based controller for boot SSD's (and maybe jail SSD's). SSD's today are very small ---

courtesy of our friends at StorageReview -- so even if you do not have room for some "full sized" 2.5" SSD's, you could always de-caseify them and stickytape them somewhere convenient. For that reason, it might be worth looking to see if you can find a 4 port SATA controller. Same trick will work with an LSI HBA, but that assumes the PCIe connector is open-ended.

Thanks for setting me straight. :)
Indeed I wasted already 2-3 usb thumb drives. That is why they were mirrored.

I have all the needed cables for 8 drives

Sounds like the best way forward is to find some controller for the boot disk.
Maybe some pci-e m2 controller ? ( no 2.5 taping needed )
Any suggestions for such a gizmo ?

 

[jgreco]

Someone had figured out how to abuse a QNAP card with an AsMedia controller on it, but it requires some finicky firmware flashing... I guess? Just seen in passing. Recently.

 

[Etorix]

As described, you have an unused M.2 2280 slot. Just get a cheap M.2 NVMe drive and you're all set.

 

[clusty]

As described, you have an unused M.2 2280 slot. Just get a cheap M.2 NVMe drive and you're all set.

The reason is I am confused by the board doc. It sais: “Total combined PCI-E lanes and SATA ports is up to 8.” What I understand from this is that sata m2 and pci-e all count towards the “8” limit.

On a différent note: anybody has an idea what is the form factor of this ssd ?

 

[Ericloewe]

It looks like it might be an M.3 thing, which is M.2 but wider. But the connector looks way wrong, it's one huge ground connection on that side. Might be one of the new things like EDSFF.

 

[clusty]

It looks like it might be an M.3 thing, which is M.2 but wider. But the connector looks way wrong, it's one huge ground connection on that side. Might be one of the new things like EDSFF.

It’s a 2015 MacBook Pro hdd that died on me a while back.

 

[Ericloewe]

Ah, then it's proprietary to Apple. And to specific models, too. Makes sense, I was wondering what the deal was with the huge ground connection. No room for such things when you're routing four lanes of PCIe.

 

[clusty]

Ah, then it's proprietary to Apple. And to specific models, too. Makes sense, I was wondering what the deal was with the huge ground connection. No room for such things when you're routing four lanes of PCIe.

Ohh crap. Guaranteed dumpster in that case….

 

[Ericloewe]

For the laptop? There are replacements available, just not a wide variety of them.

 

[Etorix]

The reason is I am confused by the board doc. It sais: “Total combined PCI-E lanes and SATA ports is up to 8.” What I understand from this is that sata m2 and pci-e all count towards the “8” limit.

If you use a M.2 SATA drive, one SATA port will be diverted. A M.2 NVMe uses two PCIe lines from the SoC with no impact on SATA.

On a différent note: anybody has an idea what is the form factor of this ssd ?
View attachment 50381

Proprietary Apple connector from the days MacBooks and the "trash can" Mac Pro still had user-replaceable storage. Don't trash it, sell it! It goes for much higher prices than an equivalent standard M-key drive.
There are also adapters to use these in PCIe slots (which would make a nice 256 GB(?) boot drive if you don't need the slot) or as big USB thumb drives (probably the best use). Make sure to get a model suitable for your old "2015 MacBook Pro", Apple had different connectors.

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