Hardware report, Mediasonic 4 bay esata with esata card (port multiplier)

[skysurf76]

I'm the guy that wrote this post about using USB with Freenas...

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/do-not-attempt-to-use-freenas-with-usb.39175/

Anyway, in my quest to avoid using vanilla sata in a case so I could have blinky lights to help me figure out which drive was dead when one died I have now replaced my 8 USB 3.0 docking stations with ....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...cm_re=4_bay_esata_dock-_-17-576-013-_-Product

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=mediasonic_esata_card-_-16-322-010-_-Product


And so far its working like a champ. HOWEVER the docking stations have port multipliers, and ironically right before I bought them I read an article about how when you use esata port multipliers that when you lose one drive in the device that is using port multipliers that all the drives on the device will drop and naturally it happened to me immediately. In FreeNAS it showed one of my 1.5TB seagate drives failed a smart test because of reallocated sectors and it told me to back up now, but the entire volume that drive was in dropped. Now the nice part was that all I had to do was reboot and the volume showed right back up again. I removed the drive, put a new one in, resilvered (I resilver like a BOSS now I have had so much practice) and it was good to go. So the setup works great, but I would only use it for like a home system or something. If a drive goes bad you won't lose the whole volume, it will just be offline until you reboot. You'll know which drive went bad though from the messages in FreeNAS. So for the price, for a home system where being offline for a short while is no big deal, the setup works great.

And no, I WILL NOT just use regular sata! I need my blinky lights. =/

 

[gpsguy]

I don't care if it's a home system or not, I wouldn't trust that setup. Nor, would I recommend it to our users.

If you need more drives, get a proper case that will support your needs. If you don't have enough onboard SATA connections, pick up a tried and true IBM M1015.

 

[Ericloewe]

If blinky lights are your concern, look at these:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DWHLFMA/?tag=ozlp-20

Also available in more compatible 4-in-3 and 3-in-2 versions (the one I use).

 

[skysurf76]

If blinky lights are your concern, look at these:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DWHLFMA/?tag=ozlp-20

Also available in more compatible 4-in-3 and 3-in-2 versions (the one I use).

I'm a bit inebriated at the moment. How does that connect? Do you hook an esata up to it and it has 4 more sata connections? Gawd, someone write a guide on the front page please!

 

[Ericloewe]

I'm a bit inebriated at the moment. How does that connect? Do you hook an esata up to it and it has 4 more sata connections? Gawd, someone write a guide on the front page please!

Well, they're for internal use, so regular SATA (be it from a SATA or SAS controller).

What your setup, exactly? From there, we should be able to suggest a concrete solution.

 

[cyberjock]

I bought a full-fledged Supermicro Chassis from ebay for $350 shipped. Surely you've spent enough time, money, and headaches that it would have been less expensive to buy the Supermicro chassis from ebay at that price, no?

 

[danb35]

Heck, this listing gives you a complete server (less drives) for under $400 shipped. You just need to replace the RAID card with the ever-popular M1015/9211-8i. You'll burn a few more watts than with modern gear, but it should work well as a FreeNAS server. Plenty of blinking lights, too.