Help Me Build My First NAS

[joeschmuck]

How do I handle cable management with 12 hard drives?

So everyone has told you how to secure the cables, but I'm going to tell you to think about air flow. You need to allow for proper air flow within your case to cool the hard drives and all your motherboard related components & cards. More fans is not always the answer unless you like more noise. Proper air flow is the answer. So when you locate your cables, make sure they do not block the air flow path you desire.

 

[Etorix]

I already had the HBA card from another system. So it would be best to plug all the hard drive into the HBA ?

For ZFS both the C621 chipset and the LSI HBA are good; there is no "better" or "best". My suggestion is purely for easier cable management. But with less than ten drives, I would suggest using the motherboard ports to avoid the extra power draw from a HBA…

One potential advantage of connecting some drives directly to the motherboard is that they may have faster access times and lower latency compared to drives connected through an HBA card.? is this true?

Drives connected to the motherboard hang off the C621 chipset, connected to the CPU by a DMI link.
Drives connected to the HBA hang off the LSI controller, connected to the CPU by a PCIe link.
Seems a very close call to me… Any difference in latency is likely negligible compared to the seek time of a mechanical spinner.

 

[Zog]

So everyone has told you how to secure the cables, but I'm going to tell you to think about air flow. You need to allow for proper air flow within your case to cool the hard drives and all your motherboard related components & cards. More fans is not always the answer unless you like more noise. Proper air flow is the answer. So when you locate your cables, make sure they do not block the air flow path you desire.

Thank you for the suggestions!

 

[Zog]

For ZFS both the C621 chipset and the LSI HBA are good; there is no "better" or "best". My suggestion is purely for easier cable management. But with less than ten drives, I would suggest using the motherboard ports to avoid the extra power draw from a HBA…


Drives connected to the motherboard hang off the C621 chipset, connected to the CPU by a DMI link.
Drives connected to the HBA hang off the LSI controller, connected to the CPU by a PCIe link.
Seems a very close call to me… Any difference in latency is likely negligible compared to the seek time of a mechanical spinner.

I am using 12 hard drives. Motherboard can take up to 10 hard drives. I am trying to figure out if I should split the up with mother board and HBA or put them all on the HBA?

 

[Zog]

So my mother board Super Micro X11SPL-F only has a VGA connection. Recommendation on a cheap graphic card that will work this mother board. I will not be connecting a monitor on it only for setup/.

 

[danb35]

Why do you need a graphics card? The board already has one. Or better yet, connect via IPMI and you won't need to connect a monitor at all.

 

[Zog]

Why do you need a graphics card? The board already has one. Or better yet, connect via IPMI and you won't need to connect a monitor at all.

The board has only VGA? I do not have anything that can do VGA? Can I install TrueNas via IPMI?

 

[Ericloewe]

I do not have anything that can do VGA?

You probably should, if venturing into these things.

Can I install TrueNas via IPMI?

Yes, the iKVM functionality is half the point of IPMI. Or you can use the serial console, optionally over IPMI, too.

 

[NugentS]

So what monitor do you have?
You can get HDMI/DP/DVI adapters to VGA - just make sure you get them the right way around - don't ask me why I am warning you of that.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

The board has only VGA? I do not have anything that can do VGA? Can I install TrueNas via IPMI?

Yes of course. IPMI offers you a complete IP based KVM via HTML5 in the Supermicro case. Plug in an install ISO via USB and use IPMI in your browser to perform the installation. If you insist you do not even need a USB key. You can mount a CD-ROM/DVD image via SMB if you have an existing SMB server. The Supermicro IPMI supports only SMB1, though. I guess that might become a problem in the future.

 

[Zog]

Ok I finally adding the hard drives. But I am having a hard time trying to figure out the best 6pin to hard drive cable power cable for 12 hard drives? I have the seasonic prime GX 650 and need to connect 12 drives. Most splitters I have seen are only 4 per cable? Are there cables that more then 4 sata connectors? Also my case is pretty tall. Can i use an 6pin extender like this? https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...ocphy=9032531&hvtargid=pla-321270357595&psc=1

I assume there is a limited on how many hard drives you can connect to one cable?

Any recommendation on how to connect 12 hard drives would be great.

 

[Ericloewe]

Can i use an 6pin extender like this? https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...ocphy=9032531&hvtargid=pla-321270357595&psc=1

For disks? No, that only carries 12V.

Most splitters I have seen are only 4 per cable? Are there cables that more then 4 sata connectors?

You'll want to avoid most of those, since they're often dodgy to the point of being dangerous.
What you can do is acquire additional Seasonic SATA power cables, they've used the same connector since the KM3 X-Series some 10 years ago.

 

[Fratopolis]

The 804 is too small. I have 8-10 drives.

I have 11 in mine 8x 3.5in and 3x 2.5 and been running coming up on 6 years. Though I have upgraded those 3tb SAS drives to 6tb and soon to 10tb drives.

I can do nvme just never cared to for my use case.