SOLVED How to use the last four drive bays of my 12-bay server

[scrappy]

As my server is currently configured I can use 8 hard drives in my server. This is what the IBM ServeRAID M1015 HBA supports by itself when flashed to IT mode. Last week I had a glimmer of hope that using a SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable to connect four SATA ports on my Motherboard to the second SAS connector on my backplane would give me access to the last four drive bays. This unfortunately did not work. When I booted the server and FreeNAS started, it kept throwing some errors which I'm sorry to say I cannot remember what those errors were now, but needless to say, it was due to the breakout cable being connected. I had to shut down the server and remove the breakout cable before my server returned to normal operation.

Can anybody here with good hardware knowledge tell me if I need another ServeRAID M1015 card? Maybe a SAS expander? Or, possibly a different backplane? While reading about the backplanes offered by Supermicro for my chassis, I see that one version (BPN-SAS2-826EL2) is offered with four SAS connectors while my backplane (BPN-SAS2-826EL1) only has two SAS connectors. Is my 2-port backplane compatible for expanding to twelve bays in a way that still exposes all the disks directly to make ZFS happy? Listed below are my server components pertinent to this conversation:

CHASSIS: Supermicro SC826
MOTHERBOARD: Supermicro X8DTN+F
HBA: Single IBM ServeRaid M1015 9240-8i (flashed to IT mode)
BACKPLANE: BPN-SAS2-826EL1

 

[Spearfoot]

As my server is currently configured I can use 8 hard drives in my server. This is what the IBM ServeRAID M1015 HBA supports by itself when flashed to IT mode. Last week I had a glimmer of hope that using a SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable to connect four SATA ports on my Motherboard to the second SAS connector on my backplane would give me access to the last four drive bays. This unfortunately did not work. When I booted the server and FreeNAS started, it kept throwing some errors which I'm sorry to say I cannot remember what those errors were now, but needless to say, it was due to the breakout cable being connected. I had to shut down the server and remove the breakout cable before my server returned to normal operation.

Can anybody here with good hardware knowledge tell me if I need another ServeRAID M1015 card? Maybe a SAS expander? Or, possibly a different backplane? While reading about the backplanes offered by Supermicro for my chassis, I see that one version (BPN-SAS2-826EL2) is offered with four SAS connectors while my backplane (BPN-SAS2-826EL1) only has two SAS connectors. Is my 2-port backplane compatible for expanding to twelve bays in a way that still exposes all the disks directly to make ZFS happy? Listed below are my server components pertinent to this conversation:

CHASSIS: Supermicro SC826
MOTHERBOARD: Supermicro X8DTN+F
HBA: Single IBM ServeRaid M1015 9240-8i (flashed to IT mode)
BACKPLANE: BPN-SAS2-826EL1

Unless I'm mistaken, your backplane already fully supports 12 drives via your existing IBM M1015 HBA. When connected to an expander, the LSI 9210/9211 / IBM M1015 / Dell H200 HBA cards support up to 256 devices.

 

[danb35]

Unless I'm mistaken, your backplane already fully supports 12 drives via your existing IBM M1015 HBA.

Yeah, this, pretty much. That's a SAS2 expander backplane. You only need (and can only effectively use) one SAS cable from the HBA to the backplane, and all 12 bays should be usable.

Edit: Take a look here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

 

[scrappy]

Yeah, this, pretty much. That's a SAS2 expander backplane. You only need (and can only effectively use) one SAS cable from the HBA to the backplane, and all 12 bays should be usable.

Edit: Take a look here: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

Ok. I will read up on that SAS primer article.

But as a tl;dr...If I am to understand this correctly, what you're saying is my backplane already acts as a SAS expander and therefore I don't actually need other hardware? Just plug in another couple drives and it will be good to go? Reason I ask is because I tried adding a ninth drive a while back and IIRC, it was freaking out about it. Perhaps I had the wrong SAS connector on the backplane plugged in? It looks like the upper SAS port is for cascading to another backplane while the lower SAS port is for the HBA? Or does it even matter?

 

[danb35]

Yes, your backplane is a SAS expander. One SAS cable from the HBA to the backplane is all you need, and all 12 bays should work. I don't think it matters which port on the backplane you use, but I could be wrong on that.

 

[Spearfoot]

Ok. I will read up on that SAS primer article.

But as a tl;dr...If I am to understand this correctly, what you're saying is my backplane already acts as a SAS expander and therefore I don't actually need other hardware? Just plug in another couple drives and it will be good to go? Reason I ask is because I tried adding a ninth drive a while back and IIRC, it was freaking out about it. Perhaps I had the wrong SAS connector on the backplane plugged in? It looks like the upper SAS port is for cascading to another backplane while the lower SAS port is for the HBA? Or does it even matter?

From the backplane manual, it looks like you should run a single cable from the HBA to the lower SAS port (J0) on the backplane:

 

[scrappy]

From the backplane manual, it looks like you should run a single cable from the HBA to the lower SAS port (J0) on the backplane:
View attachment 18779

This is how my backplane and SAS cable is currently setup. I might've had the SFF8087 from my HBA connected to the upper (J1) port when I first started configuring my hardware a while back. I just remember something about the HBA controller reporting errors when I tried to have more than 8 drives. Will double check to see if I can boot with more than 8 drives and report my findings when I get a chance—hopefully today or tomorrow.

 

[scrappy]

Update: I plugged in a few more spare drives and they all were recognized. I was mistaken about the maximum quantity of drives I could use. Whatever problem I had before didn't happen a few moments ago when I restarted the server. A big thanks to everyone for the help and info!