Reasonably priced HBA with Ext and Int

[OldHoster]

I am looking for something that has two external ports to run six of the ioSafe fireproof/waterproof drives. They have eSATA connections. Then I would like to run 6-10 internal drives on top of the externals off of this card. The ioSafes are because we want 1 minute snap shots on some critical data with them welded into the studs into the concreate at each location. There is already a colo as another back up. At first we are funding this as a test what do you recommend with external and internal ports?

 

[Chris Moore]

They have eSATA connections.

Is that a SATA port multiplier taking one SATA connection and running five drives from it? If it is, it is not going to work well with FreeNAS. I started my journey with FreeNAS back in 2011 and when I first wanted to expand to more drive bays, I used SATA multiplier enclosures. I fought with those things for years before I gave up on them and went to SAS for drive connections. Please do some more research on the hardware in that before you buy it. It is really not the only answer.

 

[OldHoster]

No using a sas hba system.

 

[Chris Moore]

I am looking for something that has two external ports to run six of the ioSafe fireproof/waterproof drives

Can you post a link to the exact product you are looking into?

Then I would like to run 6-10 internal drives on top of the externals off of this card.

Your answer for the external drives is going to be different than the answer for the internal drives and the external setup is going to depend on exactly what product you are looking at from ioSafe.

For the internal drives, you would be well served by one of these:

Drive Controller: Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162834659601
Price: US $56.55

To go with the HBA above, you will need:

Drive Cables: Lot of 2 Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206
Price: US $12.99

 

[OldHoster]

No using a sas hba system.

Which drive has its own in eSATA connection

 

[OldHoster]

Here is the link. We dealt with a system that had been in a very hot fire and then sunk to over 450m and still got data off.

Sorry forgot to attach the link

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00VJBH598/ref=psdcmw_595048_t2_B00VJBHIJ0

 

[Chris Moore]

Here is the link. We dealt with a system that had been in a very hot fire and then sunk to over 450m and still got data off.

Sorry forgot to attach the link

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00VJBH598/ref=psdcmw_595048_t2_B00VJBHIJ0

So each enclosure is holding a single drive. I see. If it has an actual eSATA port on the back of the enclosure, you would need a eSATA to SATA adapter for each drive, like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-Female-Jack-to-ESATA-Male-Plug-Convert-Adapter-Convertor-Hard-Drive-Black/153019524442

Because the SAS cables you would want to use have SATA connections on the end like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-SAS-SFF-8088-to-4-SATA-7pin-3-6gbps-Hard-Disk-Data-1m-Cable-for-Raid-Card/192319235803
Probably need two of those, and that gives you eight ports to work with, so you might consider eight of the external drives, but that is down to your needs.

The HBA card to connect that to, I would suggest one like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9200-8e-6Gbps-8-lane-external-SAS-HBA-P20-IT-Mode-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID-NoROM/163534822734

 

[Chris Moore]

This would have you use one HBA for the internal drives and another for the external drives. FreeNAS has no problem with that. It is the simple solution. It could be done with a single HBA, but the wiring gets more complicated.

 

[OldHoster]

You are right and I have the external card already but would like a card with internal and external ports because we have 2x10gbe and only one x8 port left without changing MB’s

 

[Chris Moore]

You could use a 16 port card like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/9201-16i-HBA-Card-16-Ports-Host-Bus-Adapter-PCI-Express-2-0-SAS-6Gbps-for-Server/192044684746
Then take two of those ports external with a cable set like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-port-Internal-SFF-8087-to-External-8088-PCI-mini-SAS-26P-Adapter-SAS-RAID-new/272970669375

and
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2Pcs-Mini-SAS-36Pin-SFF-8087-to-36Pin-SFF-8087-SAS-Data-Internal-Server-Cable-1M/202094506489
in mind of what @jgreco said about the cable length, perhaps you might substitute these shorter cables:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/miniSAS-IP...ch-33-cm-host-to-backplane-cable/163288762214

 

[jgreco]

The problem here is that SATA has a 1M total cable length. That's measured from the port on the HBA. eSATA adds some complexity here but I still think you'll want to be cautious about cable lengths.

 

[Chris Moore]

You are right and I have the external card already but would like a card with internal and external ports because we have 2x10gbe and only one x8 port left without changing MB’s

Sorry, I did some searching and I didn't find a SAS controller with eight external and eight internal. The ones that are split like that are usually four and four.

 

[Ericloewe]

You could take a 16-port and use adapters from SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 (or SFF-8643 to SFF-8644), but they'll eat into cable length.

The "correct" way of doing external SATA is with an SAS expander right next to the disks, which keeps the SATA cable length down and moves the critical part to SAS, which was actually designed for this stuff.