Input on SuperMicro Superchassis

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I'm looking into a case to better fit my needs,and i came across some postings on ebay for SuperMicro Super chassis such as the SC846E16-R1200B .

Does anyone have any input on this case, or if anyone has any build pictures i'd really like to see a finished product with this case.

With that being said, do the harddrive activity lights work out of the box (or with simple changes) and the harddrive status lights?
 

Ericloewe

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Activity lights are generally driven by the SATA/SAS interface and thus work fine. Status lights are rather complicated - don't expect them to work.

As for the case, you'd be happy with it if you don't mind the deafening noise.
 
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Thanks for the reply Ericloewe, the noise doesn't bother me none, it will be in a closet that i ventilated obviously so it can be as loud as can be. As per the status lights, complicated as in don't try or, complicated as in i can try and then give up :P
 

Ericloewe

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Honestly, I'm not sure if it's feasible in FreeNAS.

I know that iX's stuff ships with the fancy indicators working, so the code exists for some cases.
 
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So i have the chassis, its REALLY nice and roomy. Got everything in there including a slim DVD drive and 2 SSD's mounted that doesnt include the 24 hot swap bays. But here is the question....the backplane that came with it is a BPN-SAS2-846EL1, which technically according to the manual , the primary port connects to the HBA, but that only gives me 1 SAS lane....so instead i connected it to the OTHER 2 SAS connections ( didn't attach to the primary ) which are used ( in the manual ) to connect to other backplanes to create a cascade....

On page 9 of the above manual you'll see numbers 7 ,8 , and 9. 7 is the primary port where an HBA would connect, instead i attached to 8 and 9, where you'd connect to create a cascade, i do NOT have ports 10 , 11 , and 12....i wish i did but that chassis was $1,200USD + lol

So how can i test the throughput to see if it is using one SAS lane or both? Or is there not really a test at all?
 

Ericloewe

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It's not one or two lanes, it's four or eight.

You wouldn't notice the difference with mechanical drives.

However, assuming that the expanders are running regular LSI firmware, all connectors in a single expander are equivalent, meaning you can connect the full 8 lanes.
 
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Thanks for the correction Ericloewe, i'm not sure what the expander uses, best way to find out? Or just google-fu it? At the moment i have both SAS cables connected from my single M1015 to the backplane expander.
 

Ericloewe

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Thanks for the correction Ericloewe, i'm not sure what the expander uses, best way to find out? Or just google-fu it? At the moment i have both SAS cables connected from my single M1015 to the backplane expander.
No real way that I know of, I'm afraid. However, if you can validate that the expander is working properly, that should be good enough.
 
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I'm right now only populating 4 harddrive bays while i wait to see what else i need, i also ordered some cable sleeving to make it look purty. Tonight i may open the case up and disconnect one of the SAS connections and test the speed with crystalmark, then reconnect it. I may even connect all 3 primary SAS connections and use my second M1015 lol
 

Ericloewe

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I'm right now only populating 4 harddrive bays while i wait to see what else i need, i also ordered some cable sleeving to make it look purty. Tonight i may open the case up and disconnect one of the SAS connections and test the speed with crystalmark, then reconnect it. I may even connect all 3 primary SAS connections and use my second M1015 lol

That probably won't work, at most you could use the second expander fit redundancy, if you have one.

With four drives you're guaranteed not to see a difference between four lanes or eight. The drives can't go faster than SATA 6Gb/s each, and you have four such links!
 
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Looks like i'll need to start buying drives :P ( thats a good enough excuse right lol ) and then i'll move on from there, thank you Ericloewe for the input!
 

marbus90

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There's no second expander on that backplane, also you need SAS drives for both expanders to work. The Don't get SAS-sy thread probably explains that too.
 
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Yea i got the no second expander, and i did find the SAS'sy thread after posting to see if it had anything about the supermicro backplanes and i found a few answers and some other hit and miss info on other sites
 
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