External HDD case

[IceBoosteR]

Hey guys,

I got an ESXi host at home, running on an HP DL360 G7 and another HP DL380 G7 will arrive soon.
I want to go with a VM on ESXi for another backup solution. I have some 3,5 inch sata drives and want to use them. As both hosts only support SFF drives, I am looking for an external drive cage. I would like to have 8 bays, but those which I found was waaay to expensive. I dont mind buying a controller card and pass this through to the VM. I would prefer eSATA or external SAS.
On the other hand, I can also buy a 70€ normal PC case with a lot of bays and put this on top of the server. Only need power for the dirves and some fans.
Mayby you guys have a solution for this?
Its only for backup, and I dont want to spend 250 bucks only for some metal ;)

Thank you in advance.
IceBoosteR

 

[IceBoosteR]

Update:
Got the idea of buying this nromal pc case, where I can put in up to 10 drives, and power them with a nornal pc-power supply. This will give my also the possibility to get some fans in the case to work.
I want to connect the drives directly to the HP p410i controller, via miniSAS as a breakout cable (need two of them) and configure each drives as raid0. Should work and passthru the SMART attributes...
Any experience in this?

 

[Arwen]

No experience, but a comment.

If you run SATA drives with a SAS controller, please note that you would still have SATA cable
length limitations. Thus, using an external chassis, (aka PC case), needs to be physically close.
Don't forget to include both external cable lengths and internal cable lengths.

One way around this is a SAS expander card. They take 4 or 8 SAS host ports and turn them into
many more disk ports, (SAS disks or SATA disks). Then the cable length between the SAS host
controller and the expander can be MUCH longer.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Connecting anything as raid0 will result in full data loss and will not pass through smart data. Raid and zfs is usually a very bad idea.

I don't think i have any ideas for something that can have 8 drives, be a jbod enclosure and cost <$250, maybe ebay is your friend.

 

[IceBoosteR]

No experience, but a comment.

If you run SATA drives with a SAS controller, please note that you would still have SATA cable
length limitations. Thus, using an external chassis, (aka PC case), needs to be physically close.
Don't forget to include both external cable lengths and internal cable lengths.

One way around this is a SAS expander card. They take 4 or 8 SAS host ports and turn them into
many more disk ports, (SAS disks or SATA disks). Then the cable length between the SAS host
controller and the expander can be MUCH longer.

Thanks for your reply.
Yes I am aware of this, and the maximum lenght of one meter.The pc chassis should be put on top of one host, if I would choose this option.
Do you have any recommended sas expander card?

A quick look on this and I found the following:
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...errerID=7.00&gclid=COHKlZ7kydQCFSe17QodiswH2A
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...troller-mit-256-mb-cache-462594-001/a-108519/
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...-qsfp-pci-e-111-00341-b0-controller/a-109731/
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...-pci-e-raid-256-mb-inkl-bbu-39r8852/a-109773/

Is this what you meant?

 

[IceBoosteR]

Connecting anything as raid0 will result in full data loss and will not pass through smart data. Raid and zfs is usually a very bad idea.

I don't think i have any ideas for something that can have 8 drives, be a jbod enclosure and cost <$250, maybe ebay is your friend.

Hi,

its only a raid0 on the smart array, which is in case a synonym for using every disk independent, as I want software and not hardware raid.
I read something about the SMART functionality in one of the HPE forums, did not test it myself and was just a thought. Anything else like a jbod enclusure would be a similar pricing as a norco rac mounted chassis, with 12 bays and a sas backplane ;)

 

[SweetAndLow]

Hi,

its only a raid0 on the smart array, which is in case a synonym for using every disk independent, as I want software and not hardware raid.
I read something about the SMART functionality in one of the HPE forums, did not test it myself and was just a thought. Anything else like a jbod enclusure would be a similar pricing as a norco rac mounted chassis, with 12 bays and a sas backplane ;)

I think you missed the blatent point I was trying to make. You absolutely 100% will not want to use raid. You want to use a plain hba with IT firmer that matches the freenas driver. This will expose the raw disks to zfs so it can work correctly and you can also run smart tests.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[IceBoosteR]

I think you missed the blatent point I was trying to make. You absolutely 100% will not want to use raid. You want to use a plain hba with IT firmer that matches the freenas driver. This will expose the raw disks to zfs so it can work correctly and you can also run smart tests.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Okey, I got the point ;)

 

[IceBoosteR]

Allright,
I have googled some hours and here is what I want to do:
I have a self made rack at home, which is in a little room under the stairs.
I want to get a HBA with 8 ports (SAT/SATA) and the maximum cable leghth of 1 meter (75cm would also work).
Then I buy some of these cages:
http://nanoxia-world.com/media/image/44/78/29/600200110-01.jpg
And put some fans in front of the drives.
I will power this with a normal ATX power supply, which will work without any motherboard ( I am in contact with the manufacturer) https://www.caseking.de/ek-water-blocks-24-pin-atx-ueberbrueckungsstecker-waek-1226.html
And last but not least, I will put this on a anti vibration plate, which is also non-slippery.

Any comment on this idea?
Do you have a recommendation on the HBA (need it in IT mode).

As I only do backups sometimes, it might be okey ;)
Maybe I will go with XPEnology to have a platform break...

 

[Arwen]

Thanks for your reply.
Yes I am aware of this, and the maximum lenght of one meter.The pc chassis should be put on top of one host, if I would choose this option.
Do you have any recommended sas expander card?

A quick look on this and I found the following:
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...errerID=7.00&gclid=COHKlZ7kydQCFSe17QodiswH2A
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...troller-mit-256-mb-cache-462594-001/a-108519/
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...-qsfp-pci-e-111-00341-b0-controller/a-109731/
https://www.servershop24.de/kompone...-pci-e-raid-256-mb-inkl-bbu-39r8852/a-109773/

Is this what you meant?

Yes and no. Only the first one is a SAS Expander card. It would be installed in the external chassis, (or PC case), to
reduce the number of cables needed. And allow longer cables.

The others are not SAS Expanders, and 2 appear to be RAID cards, (not recommended for ZFS).

 

[Johnnie Black]

See this thread for some ideas.

 

[IceBoosteR]

Thnak you for your posts.
I think I need a list with the controllers which can be flashed to IT mode.

And thanks for the link to the other thread, that give me some ideas.