BUILD Hi, please help check this build for problems?

[Stephen2]

Thanks @Spearfoot, great advice and a really nice attitude, not making me feel too silly here :) appreciated.

I'll report back here for posterity, might be a couple of weeks still.

 

[Spearfoot]

Thanks @Spearfoot, great advice and a really nice attitude, not making me feel too silly here :) appreciated.

I'll report back here for posterity, might be a couple of weeks still.

Well, you're very welcome. And please do post back later and let us know how things work out.

I own an X10SL7 myself, connected to 8 discrete drives. I'd like to know whether it will drive a backplane w/ the correct cable(s).

 

[jgreco]

yes, it will definitely drive a backplane with the correct cable. You only need four ports for the multilane. Please see the SAS primer.

 

[Stephen2]

The only sticky I hadn't read in this section heh... lazy means confusion - must remember that!

I just got through the read, thank you... The maths made it all make sense.

1 8087 Port = 24Gbps = 4 x 6Gbps SATA Ports

Just the multilane addressing thing still would have confused me I guess.


Thanks again everyone, as always.

 

[Spearfoot]

yes, it will definitely drive a backplane with the correct cable. You only need four ports for the multilane.

I thought it would, but it's good to have confirmation from the grumpy green feller. :)

 

[Ericloewe]

will it work when connected to 4 of the X10SL7's SAS ports?

Of course. Why wouldn't it? It's just a different physical form factor.

 

[jgreco]

Of course. Why wouldn't it? It's just a different physical form factor.

The one thing I'd watch out for would be that you should probably be sensible about it. Plug connectors P1...P4 into the first four SAS sockets in the same order.

From the conceptual point of view, you might even be able to get away with connecting a single SAS lane to the backplane, but I'm pretty sure this is actually limited in practice. Someone with a reverse breakout setup is welcome to enlighten me, I'm curious but don't have the right gear to experiment with this.

 

[Ericloewe]

The one thing I'd watch out for would be that you should probably be sensible about it. Plug connectors P1...P4 into the first four SAS sockets in the same order.

From the conceptual point of view, you might even be able to get away with connecting a single SAS lane to the backplane, but I'm pretty sure this is actually limited in practice. Someone with a reverse breakout setup is welcome to enlighten me, I'm curious but don't have the right gear to experiment with this.

I think it's supposed to work in "any" configuration, since all lanes are independent and expanders just automagically aggregate them. It would definitely be interesting to get some empirical data on this, though.

 

[jgreco]

I think it's supposed to work in "any" configuration, since all lanes are independent and expanders just automagically aggregate them. It would definitely be interesting to get some empirical data on this, though.

I don't think it is in practice. I'm pretty sure I've seen in some tech notes discussion about requirements for upstream host connectivity and that it was limited to x4/x8 wideporting or something like that.

*Conceptually* you should be able to go really truly bonkers though.

 

[Stephen2]

For 100% thread closure, a single reverse SAS breakout cable, plugged into 4 SAS ports in order as recommended by @jgreco is working fantastically well.

Running badblocks as we speak on 7x3TB drives, and booting off 2 SSDs, all through the magic of SAS... love it :)

 

[Stux]

If you feel like playing, it'd be cool to know if it works with just one sas port, what about two?

What about 4 out of order ;)

Take it from theoretical to practical ;)