HW guidance

[GKermit]

Got hold of a new machine for little money. Unfortunately only SFF slots and want to keep the LFF disks from the old machine I currently is running truenas scale on.

Found out about DAS/JBOD enclosures and tried to search the forum but couldn't find any clear guide what works, what doesn't or a how-to.
So what do I need or better where could I find some basic reading?
Seems to be some decent priced jbod"s on eBay, but I guess I need some card/controller to connect to the external enclosure.

 

[danb35]

The only "safe" way to connect multiple disks in a single external chassis is via SAS. You'd need a SAS HBA (LSI/Avago/Broadcom 2008/2308/3008) in your NAS, and then a SAS cable from there to the JBOD. Straightforward enough, and the HBAs are reasonably-priced on eBay. For more information, see:

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

and

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop...

www.truenas.com

 

[GKermit]

Understand the concept of HBA and run a lsi hba in the current server.

I found a cheap FUJITSU JX40 S2 that are possible to ship to Sweden for a decent amount.
Datasheet says a sff-8644 connector in IO module. What makes me concerned is the IO module (which seems to be present in most jbod enclosures).
What makes me concerned is will these "io modules" give direct access for my hba card?
Power-up/down sequence ?

Found this thread that's seems addressing this
In some way. Looks like I should be able to reuse my old chassis as a "jbod"
https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/best-practices-when-dealing-with-jbod-disk-shelves.107393/

 

[Arwen]

Here is are 2 examples of external SAS / SATA disk enclosures. Note I have no connection to the manufacturer, nor have used the product;

RS6414S/6418S Overview | | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

The HighPoint RocketStor 6414S/6418S external 4- and 8-bay 6Gb/s SAS/SATA storage tower enclosures are designed for use with RocketRAID hardware.

www.highpoint-tech.com

Also note, don't buy or consider this vendor's external RAID enclosures with TrueNAS. It's highly not recommended.

 

[GKermit]

I guess those are not the way to go as no direct access from HBA controller

 

[Arwen]

I guess those are not the way to go as no direct access from HBA controller

Correct, external RAID enclosures, even if wired to a HBA, are not recommended.

But, simple JBOD enclosures, like the 2 I linked, are fine. And do work with a HBA, which has external connector(s).