New HBA w/ more than 2 SAS

[afmiller]

Currently I am running FreeNAS on a 24 bay supermicro machine. I ran out of PCIe 2.0 slots. I am running 2x M1015 cards that are cross flashed and the other is the 10Gb NIC. What can I get to replace the 1015s with a different HBA that supports more SAS connections 4 or more would be preferred. I want to add a more HDDs to the machine. I am looking at getting some (HUH721010ALE600)
I know eventually I will need to upgrade the whole machine, but looking to extend it as much as possible.

Thanks

 

[sretalla]

I run my 24 bay system off a single LSI Logic Controller Card 05-25699-00 9305-24i 24-Port SAS 12Gb/s PCI-Express 3.0 Host Bus Adapter

Even if it's PCIe3, it will run on a PCIe2 system... although you may want to seek a similar card from the previous series to save some money.

 

[jgreco]

If you are running hard drives, you may also be able to use an SAS expander to increase your capacity.

https://www.ixsystems.com/community...-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.26145/

 

[afmiller]

Are there any suggestions on which expander to get? Also do you plug the expander to the raid card? Or just does it work?

Thanks for the info jgreco

 

[jgreco]

Some SAS expanders are designed like PCIe cards, but only use the PCIe socket for power. Others are designed to be mounted in a drive bay or in a special location in the server, such as the Dell N4C2D's that are on eBay cheaply these days. For the N4C2D, you'd need to find a place to mount it, and then arrange for 12V power as well. You then just connect it up to one of your HBA SFF8087's and you can run a bunch of drives off it. The HBA and the expander communicate at 24Gbps (4 lanes, 6Gbps). If all your drives are going simultaneously, that leaves you 1Gbps per drive (or about 125MBytes/sec) which is less than theoretical max throughput for modern drives, but in practice it probably works fine for HDD.

 

[JaimieV]

I'm running as per my configs below - LSI 9201 or 9207, Dell Xyratex HB-1235 twelve-disk shelf. I have two of those now, and they daisy chain nicely. With the three-vdev pool I'm currently getting 900meg/sec read/write over 10gigE after the cache fills, so plenty fast enough.

You can also get 9200-series with four ports, search for LSI SAS 16E (external) or 16i (internal) on ebay, if that suits your needs.

 

[tfran1990]

Some SAS expanders are designed like PCIe cards, but only use the PCIe socket for power

IBM 46M0997 should be mentioned, there 13$ on ebay and many people on the forum live by them.
The only problem is..... you gotta do some flashing.

 

[afmiller]

IBM 46M0997 should be mentioned, there 13$ on ebay and many people on the forum live by them.
The only problem is..... you gotta do some flashing.

Do you have a good guide on flash these?

 

[afmiller]

I'm running as per my configs below - LSI 9201 or 9207, Dell Xyratex HB-1235 twelve-disk shelf. I have two of those now, and they daisy chain nicely. With the three-vdev pool I'm currently getting 900meg/sec read/write over 10gigE after the cache fills, so plenty fast enough.

You can also get 9200-series with four ports, search for LSI SAS 16E (external) or 16i (internal) on ebay, if that suits your needs.

Found a 9201 on eBay, I don’t need to do any cross flash, or plug this one into the the 1015 do I?

 

[afmiller]

Would RES2SV240 work well too?

 

[Johnnie Black]

Would RES2SV240 work well too?

Yep.

 

[tfran1990]

Do you have a good guide on flash these?

If i had to choose between the 46M0997 or the RES2sV240 i would go the route that saves me 80$(based off ebay prices)the only thing to consider is the form factor of the card.
Theres even a VERY good video made by some guys from server the home on how to do it setp by step.
I was able to do it no problem.
youtube it.

 

[jgreco]

I think the RES2SV240 is probably one of the better choices, but it usually seems a bit more expensive.

 

[tfran1990]

I think the RES2SV240 is probably one of the better choices, but it usually seems a bit more expensive.

whats the reason? just asking.

 

[JaimieV]

Found a 9201 on eBay, I don’t need to do any cross flash, or plug this one into the the 1015 do I?

You will need to flash it to IT mode if it isn't already; you don't need to plug it into the 1015 - it's an HBA itself so an independent device. I'm suggesting only if having more external SFF-8088 sockets (or internal SFF-8087s) is useful for however you end up doing things.

 

[afmiller]

Some SAS expanders are designed like PCIe cards, but only use the PCIe socket for power. Others are designed to be mounted in a drive bay or in a special location in the server, such as the Dell N4C2D's that are on eBay cheaply these days. For the N4C2D, you'd need to find a place to mount it, and then arrange for 12V power as well. You then just connect it up to one of your HBA SFF8087's and you can run a bunch of drives off it. The HBA and the expander communicate at 24Gbps (4 lanes, 6Gbps). If all your drives are going simultaneously, that leaves you 1Gbps per drive (or about 125MBytes/sec) which is less than theoretical max throughput for modern drives, but in practice it probably works fine for HDD.

On the Dell N4C2Ds, I'm assuming the top end is 8087, what are the bottom connectors?

 

[jgreco]

I would imagine external SFF-8088's