Need advice on HBA to pair with BPN SAS2 846EL1

[joscho42]

Hello,

I'm working on my first server build and after a lot of troubleshooting
and reading up on the subject I decided to look for some final advice/help to finish my build.

First, this is what I currently have:
Backplane: BPN SAS 846A
Motherboard: X10SRL-F
CPU: INTEL XEON E5-2620 V4 (2.1 GHZ / 3.0 GHZ)
Ram: 64GB
Storage: 250gb SSD for OS
Storage: 2TB SSD for cache
Storage: 10* Toshiba MG07SCA 12TB (end goal would be 24 *12tb drives)
RAID Card: 3ware 9650SE 24m8
RAID Card: ARC-1223-8i
all conveniently housed in a Supermicro U4 chassis

The main use for the server will be working on film and 3D/CG projects directly from the server instead of locally on my workstations. As well as rendering to the server. All of this would be managed over TrueNas Scale.

I was planning on filling my 24 bays with 12TB SAS drives but sadly ran into the dreaded 2tb limit imposed by my sas1 backplane and 3ware raid card.
To eliminate the 2TB limit, I've decided to upgrade to a SAS2 backplane+HBA.

I've decided on the BPN SAS2 846EL1 as a possible upgrade, but I'm still unsure about some things.

Will this backplane allow for the 24*12TB to be supported, and if so what HBA would be recommend for keeping effective speed?

Is the ARC-1223-8i that I already own also a viable option to connect the backplane to the motherboard?

And finally, will I need any other parts to make my SAS2 setup work (Expander card...), or did I forget anything?


Thanks in advance.

 

[jgreco]

You're hosed on your RAID cards.

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

There is no limitation on an 846A backplane as to drive size, however, you do need six SFF-8087's or to add an SAS expander to the mix. These are available as add-on cards. See

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 topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

 

[NugentS]

I'll just second what @jgreco has told you.

 

[joscho42]

Thank you very much, I see all my drives in Truenas now ;)
I diched the 846A because I got a good deal on a 846EL1 (which is sas2 and has a build in expander) and made the setup a bit cheaper and cleaner (only one cable needed). The links were very helpful.