SATADOM Recommendation for Dell R710

[Flapjack]

I'm looking to make the move from USB to SATADOM, but am trying to find the most cost-effective solution with the easiest way to connect power to a Dell R710.

Reading cyberjock's hardware thread shows the Innodisk 16GB to be a worthy choice (actually, looking for 8GB because I'm CHEAP), but I'll be honest... I can't figure out the difference between Pin 7 and Pin 8. I've read that Innodisk's "Pin 8" gets power from the SATA port... but that sounds too good to be true. I haven't really put my head inside the R710 to look for a power source, but I know my old Dell 2950s only had a molex power plug up front, which I ended up using for my SSD L2ARC drive.

 

[TheKiwi]

8GB is too small for modern freeNas. Get 16GB

 

[Flapjack]

Ok. The price difference is negligible. What about the power issue?

 

[Flapjack]

Does anyone know if the R710 supports pin 7? I simply cannot find anything that says it does or doesn't.

 

[TheKiwi]

Does anyone know if the R710 supports pin 7? I simply cannot find anything that says it does or doesn't.

Not sure. If you can't find it listed, assume it wont support it. You may need a power cable for the DOM.

 

[Flapjack]

I got this one. I'm assuming it doesn't have a power cable, which sucks... as Dell servers don't just have extra molex connectors all over...

http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd/ssddetails.html?prodid=DESSH-16GD07RC1SCF

The only one I've seen with both was someone posting here about it. He had used a cable, even though it was pin 7, but it did nothing.

 

[Arwen]

From my reading I think FreeNAS 10 will desire / require a 16GB boot drive. So it's
good that you went with 16GB for planning ahead.

As for the SATA DOM, I bought some SuperMicro ones, plus external power cable.
The power cable had a pass-through so I could take the Molex 4 pin in/out, with the
DOM power too. They were not cheap, but I was after reliability and speed, over
cost.

 

[Flapjack]

Can you post a link of which one you got, as well as the power cable?

 

[TheKiwi]

I got this one. I'm assuming it doesn't have a power cable, which sucks... as Dell servers don't just have extra molex connectors all over...

http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd/ssddetails.html?prodid=DESSH-16GD07RC1SCF

The only one I've seen with both was someone posting here about it. He had used a cable, even though it was pin 7, but it did nothing.

I think you might be out of luck here. Looking at other threads, it doesn't look like the pin7-VCC models can be powered using the cable.

 

[Flapjack]

@TheKiwi
So which 16GB SATADOM would you recommend for this server?

 

[Arwen]

This is what I got for my FreeNAS Mini boot mirror;

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NGBXVXS/?tag=ozlp-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OU422IU/?tag=ozlp-20

Note that I went up one size since it was possible that my existing 16GB would
be larger than the new 16GB SATA DOM. And it turned out to be the case! Here
is a link to the 16GB one;
http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-AM..._cp_147_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1WP6DH87RR9EVPQEHD9Z
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NGBW5GM/?tag=ozlp-20

One nice thing about these, is that they include the power jack, in addition to the
special SATA port power. My FreeNAS Mini, (and many other server boards), don't
yet include such special ports. Or only 1 special port.

 

[Flapjack]

Wow... I wonder why it's so much pricier than the Innodisk ones. On top of that, they are charging another $20 for a .50 cable.

Well, it looks like I'll be picking up one of those soon. I can't find any better one that actually comes with a cable...

 

[Fuganater]

On a Dell server it is easier just to use 2x 16GB Flash drives. Supermicro board/chassis is easier for SATADOM or SSDs for the boot drives.

 

[Arwen]

Wow... I wonder why it's so much pricier than the Innodisk ones. On top of that, they are charging another $20 for a .50 cable.

Well, it looks like I'll be picking up one of those soon. I can't find any better one that actually comes with a cable...

Yes, they were much pricier than many other ones I have seen, both on Amazon and elsewhere. My decision
was based on multiple items as I said, reliability and speed. Some of the really cheap SATA DOMs have poor
reliability reviews, as well as pretty low performers.

To give an idea of what I want in reliability, my prior NAS, an Infrant ReadyNAS 1000S lasted 7 years. It did
get a memory upgrade and additional disks. (Not to mention OS upgrades.) But otherwise worked perfectly
without any repairs. So buying (potentially cheaply made) USB drives was out of the question.

 

[Mr_N]

Yeah if your after reliability get one of the SLC DOMS they will be more expensive then the MLC variety but have a much greater write cycle lifetime for all the freenas updates over the next 10 years :P

 

[adamgoldberg]

Can someone measure the size of the Supermicro SATA DOMs? In particular, will it fit in a 1RU system? (I had been looking for a horizontal SATA DOM, but I can't find one that's both horizontal /and/ that supports external (non-pin-7) power.

(Nope, I don't have/won't have a 1RU Freenas, but you guys are the Supermicro experts :))

 

[wtfR6a]

supermicro satadoms fit in 1u just fine - I just used one today.

 

[adamgoldberg]

supermicro satadoms fit in 1u just fine - I just used one today.

Thanks!

 

[Flapjack]

So... in the end, I ended up going with what Fuganater suggested and just bought the SD card module and threw a high-speed 32GB card in there. Seems to be working great, though I'm not sure how I could get 2x cards in there. The SD module only supports one card.

As for power, there is a cable sold by DiscTech that converts the 4-pin TBU/optical drive power plug on the front of the motherboard to a cable that supplies power to the original TBU plug, SATA power, or 4-pin molex. While I'm currently using that for my L2ARC cache drive, it would also be possible to attach a SATADOM power cable to the molex end of the splitter. Not sure how long the cable that you can get for the SATADOMs is, but if it's thin enough, you could probably just run it over top of the fans. I wish I had gotten a non-pin7 one instead. Now I have an SATADOM I can't even use. :p

Here is a picture of my setup. Yeah... the SSD is kinda ghetto, but it weighs not much more than a feather. I wish I could stuff it in the optical drive bay...

**EDIT**
Here is the link for the GP700 cable, in case it wasn't already posted:
http://disctech.com/Dell-PowerEdge-...le-Assembly-for-Optical-Drive-9in-23cm-GP700-

(click for zoom)

 

[Flapjack]

It's been a little over a week since installing FreeNAS to this new system, and it's entirely unstable. The only difference between this one and the last system I had it running on has been the decision to use the SD card instead of USB. I installed FreeNAS using the integrated SD module in the Dell R710.

Through searching the forums, I've found one reference to USB being more stable than SD cards... should I try and recover the config and just install to a USB, or should I be looking at other issues? The hardware is 100% stable. I've run it through a Prime95 stress test as well as a 24hr MemTest.

**EDIT**
I can't even get it to boot now. It just hangs at "Unrecognized Source (mdns)"

**EDIT 2**
I'm pretty sure that message has to do with AD auth, which I am going to disable at the next successful boot. I had a CIFS share on there that I am no longer using, so I don't need AD auth.