Going from 8 bay to 16 bay case.....Questions

[Simpleone71]

I have a current Freenas 9.3 setup of:

Supermicro CSE-825TQ-563LPB 8-Bays
Supermicro X10SRI-F-O
Intel Xeon E5-2630v3
64 GB ECC ram
8 HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB drives in Raidz2
M1015 flashed as LSI in IT mode

I'm wanting to upgrade by buying a 16 bay Supermicro CSE-836E1-R800B. I would slowly add more 4 TB drives to eventually fill up the 16 bays. I would add the drives 2 at a time. I would be keeping the motherboard, cpu, ram, etc.

My question is since I will be having a total of 16 bays, would I need to purchase a second M1015 (and of course flash it to IT mode) or would I be better buying a single card of some type that handles 16 ports(recommendations if that is a yes)? Can I add the drives two at a time and increase the pool as I do this?

 

[jgreco]

Please check out the SAS sticky in this subforum. It discusses the option of using a SAS expander backplane, which may be the better option for you. You probably don't want to purchase a 16 port HBA. They're usually pricey. Two M1015's is almost certainly cheaper if you go the HBA route.

 

[Simpleone71]

Okay, I looked at that and learned alot! Thanks, but at the same time it made me have a few more questions. The case I'm looking at has this:

3U Expander Backplane, features:
• Scalability through cascading
• 3Gb support
• Inband SES-2 Enclosure Management
• SAS/SATA support
• Single input/output SFF 8087 connectors

So my questions are:
1) My drives are 6Gb SATA, I know my drives would work as they are backwards compatible, but would I see any performance hits by not spending more money for a SATA3 capable backplane in a case?
2) This expander backplane only has a single SFF 8087 connector, so I am assuming that I would just buy a SFF 8087 to SFF 8087 cable and only use one port on my current M1015 card?

Also, it keeps mentioning SES-2 support and SAS, but I'm assuming SATA would be fine with it? I can get this case very reasonable, but if it isn't a wise move, then I'm better to wait until later in the year when I can afford something better. Anyone with this case?

 

[Simpleone71]

Okay, I did alot more research.

The case I'm looking at doesn't support overt 2TB drives, so that means it is out. I'll have to look around for another Supermicro case then.

The other question still remains, so if I get a backplane with SFF 8087 connectors, they would just need a SFF 8087 to SFF 8087 connector and plug directly into the M1015 card port?

 

[jgreco]

3U Expander Backplane, features:

Good

• 3Gb support

Bad

• SAS/SATA support

Answers your question below

1) My drives are 6Gb SATA, I know my drives would work as they are backwards compatible, but would I see any performance hits by not spending more money for a SATA3 capable backplane in a case?

Wrong question. Contemporary HDD's can barely outpace 1.5Gbps SATA (that's ~180MBytes/sec, the fastest stuff out there's ~200-250). You're more likely to be taxing the 4x wideport. 4 lanes of 3Gbps is only 12Gbps, so there's only 12Gbps between the expander and the HBA. If you're running 16 drives over that, you are definitely limiting the speed of all-local activities such as scrubs. This is MUCH less of a concern if that link is 24Gbps (6Gbps SAS x 4 lanes).

2) This expander backplane only has a single SFF 8087 connector, so I am assuming that I would just buy a SFF 8087 to SFF 8087 cable and only use one port on my current M1015 card?

Yep

Also, it keeps mentioning SES-2 support and SAS, but I'm assuming SATA would be fine with it?

Yep. SES-2 is the enclosure management stuff, drive status lights and other bling.

The case I'm looking at doesn't support overt 2TB drives, so that means it is out.

Yep, hence the "Bad" above