Need some validation...

[mumbles]

Hello,
I am building a FreeNAS server based on research done here, but still have questions regarding cabling.
I have the following equipment so far;
Supermicro SuperChassis 836BE16-R920B with a BPN-SAS2-836EL backplane and I plan on purchasing a HP H220 HBA.

I believe I need a SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cable to connect the HBA to the SAS expander on the backplane.

Questions;
Is this the correct cable to connect the backplane to the SATA drives I'll use... likely WD Reds?

If so, is there any best practices on which front side ports to use for the connections? In other words, to connect to 16 drives I believe I'll need 4 breakout cables, do I connect those to ports 0 - 3 on the backplane or 0, 4, 8, 12 or ???

I'm sure I'll have additional questions, but I'll leave it at those for now.

 

[mumbles]

Still hoping for an answer to the above cable question, but as I figured I have more questions...

This time it's about 10Gb SFP+ NICs... from what I've read, some of the typical choices from Intel, Chelsio, etc... tend to run warmish, which I'm trying to avoid. It looks like Solarflare cards might run a bit cooler, but, not being a network guy, I'm having difficulty determining the best model. The recommended models are mostly in the 5000 series which are PCIe 2 cards. I was looking into the 7000 series cards which are PCIe 3 cards and was wondering if anyone had experience with them?