Supermicro 4U chassis backplane for 3TB+ drives

[Fuganater]

I am going to get a SuperMicro chassis from Ebay (since everyone here says its the bees knees) but I read that the backplanes that come with the Supermicro cases do not work well with 3TB+ drives unless fully populated. Is there a backplane that does work with 3-4TB drives that does NOT need to be fully populated?

I found this but I don't really know what it means. The HDD was tested with the backplane but does it play nicely only having 10x drives? I have 10x 3TB WD SE drives WD3000F9YZ and it says BPN-SAS3-826EL1 was tested with it. A quick search showed that that alone is $300+.

And what is a good ebay price for a 3U or 4U chassis? And is there anything lighter/cheaper that isn't like made in china chintzy? Rosewill has one that is cheapish. I also see tons of Norco chassis.

 

[jgreco]

I read that the backplanes that come with the Supermicro cases do not work well with 3TB+ drives unless fully populated.

Does that mean that my SC846BE26 that's only got 12 4TB drives in it for the last few years is going to fail?!?!?!

No, seriously, where'd you read that?

You want to have all the slots filled. That doesn't mean with drives. That means with trays, and with the dummy plastic shells if there isn't a drive in the tray, in order to guarantee airflow.

And what is a good ebay price for a 3U or 4U chassis? And is there anything lighter/cheaper that isn't like made in china chintzy? Rosewill has one that is cheapish. I also see tons of Norco chassis.

$400 is a very good price on a Supermicro 4U 24 drive chassis. They do show up at that price point from time to time, sometimes even with an old X7 or X8 gen serverboard in there.

 

[Fuganater]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4U-Supermic...-800Watt-PS-/141788374037?hash=item21033ee415

In the description it says "BPN-SAS-846EL1 SAS Expander (24x 3.5" SAS/SATA Hot-swappable Drive Bays)***3TB and 4TB Hard Drive may not be recognized by the backplane if fully populated."

 

[jgreco]

... ask the seller if there's some basis in reality? Check the manual for that backplane to see what it says? ...

No idea.

 

[depasseg]

There were some much older backplanes that did have some sort of issue with larger capacity drives. Which model are you considering? The quantity of drives you insert doesn't matter.

 

[jgreco]

The SAS 3Gbps controllers only supported 32 bit addressing and were therefore limited to 2TB drives. This, however, was not dependent on whether or not the backplane was filled with drives.

 

[Fuganater]

You want to have all the slots filled. That doesn't mean with drives. That means with trays, and with the dummy plastic shells if there isn't a drive in the tray, in order to guarantee airflow.
.

Obviously.... what backplane are you using? and are you using bigger than 2TB drives?


BPN-SAS-846EL1 is the backplane. https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/BPN-SAS-846EL.pdf nothing about dive sizes.

I just don't want to buy something that will limit me right out of the box.

 

[jgreco]

1) It's never clear what is "obvious" to new users, or whether what they think they saw might be some similar-but-unrelated issue, which is why I mentioned the tray issue. It is not intended as anything other than an attempt to identify whether or not maybe something else was said-and-misunderstood.

2) I already provided hardware details in #2 above.

3) I've seen lots of 846EL1 in use and don't recall ever having heard that. A note to Supermicro tech support inquiring about it might be prudent anyways.

 

[Fuganater]

1) It's never clear what is "obvious" to new users, or whether what they think they saw might be some similar-but-unrelated issue, which is why I mentioned the tray issue. It is not intended as anything other than an attempt to identify whether or not maybe something else was said-and-misunderstood.

2) I already provided hardware details in #2 above.

3) I've seen lots of 846EL1 in use and don't recall ever having heard that. A note to Supermicro tech support inquiring about it might be prudent anyways.

Sorry my reply was a bit jerkish.

I lookied into your chasis and the backplane you use is different that the ones I am looking at. I contacted 2 sellers on ebay and contacted Supermicro. hopefully someone gives me a straight answer.

 

[Darren Myers]

I was told if you go for the supermicro superchassis you want a model with the backplane BPN-SAS2-846EL1 ; but thats just what i was told but i saw alot of sellers on ebay with the SAS-846EL1 backplanes, my server came from a ebay seller called certifiedservers , this is one of there listings http://www.ebay.com/itm/321835852460?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

[jgreco]

The SAS- part is for old 3Gbps SAS while the SAS2- part is 6Gbps. You probably want the SAS2 part if performance is a critical issue.

 

[Fuganater]

I was told if you go for the supermicro superchassis you want a model with the backplane BPN-SAS2-846EL1 ; but thats just what i was told but i saw alot of sellers on ebay with the SAS-846EL1 backplanes, my server came from a ebay seller called certifiedservers , this is one of there listings http://www.ebay.com/itm/321835852460?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

You reply is like perfectly timed. I have been looking at mrrackables shop and all of his servers are the SAS-846EL1. I don't really understand the difference between that and the SAS2-846EL1.

I must say, picking the right case is brutal. I never had this issue when building gaming PCs. I found many on eBay for prices that are about $50 from each other.
$185 + 85 shipping with pus NO rails $270
$245 + 85 shipping with rails and redundant psu $330
$255 + 85 shipping with rails and redundant PSU $340
$255 + 75 shipping with rails and dual PSU $330
$200 + 95 shipping with dual psu NO rails $295
Now these have systems in them
$375 + 85 shipping with rails and a X8 dual E5504 system $460

Then there is this one which is only 3U
$175 + 35 shipping with older system $210 (no rails)

After writing all those down the one with the X8 dual system looks nice. I don't need it but I guess I can wait to get another cheap chassis at a later date for it.

What do you guys think?

The SAS- part is for old 3Gbps SAS while the SAS2- part is 6Gbps. You probably want the SAS2 part if performance is a critical issue.

Annnd my question was answered. Thanks jgreco!

This server is just for storage and I highly doubt i will saturate 3Gbps speeds in a media server. (If I am wrong please let me know)

 

[jgreco]

i'll have another comment or two for you when I get back to the office. Don't pull the trigger on anything quite yet.

 

[Darren Myers]

I would only get a chassis with rack rails if i had an actual rack to put it in, that being said i DO have a rack so i would shoot for the rails, i would deff go for the dual PSU's for redundancy just like you'd want to mirror boot drives for redundancy. As per the chassis that has a motherboard and stuff in them, if you do get it just take the parts out and resell it make back 50-100 bucks and call it a day.

 

[Fuganater]

I got a counter offer of $360 for the X8 dual E5504 system with rails and redundant PSU. So after shipping that is $445.

 

[SirMaster]

Don't get a SAS1 expander backplane. BPN-SAS-846EL1 is an older SAS1 expander backplane which has problems with disks over 2TB.

Just make sure to get a Supermicro case with a BPN-SAS2-846EL1 which is the newer SAS2 expander backplane and works with current 8TB drives at least so far.

I got one of these myself recently for $245 + $45 shipping = $290.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321835852460?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

They sell it in other configurations too like +PSU:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...Server-1PSU-/321837581920?hash=item4aef03c660

+motherboard:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...y-4U-Server-/191436795074?hash=item2c9285acc2

+rails
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...r-2PS-RAILS-/321838565726?hash=item4aef12c95e

I went with the plain one because I wanted to put in my own quiet PSU and also already had a motherboard.

Make sure to make an offer as the buy it now price is way too high.

 

[Fuganater]

Don't get a SAS1 expander backplane. BPN-SAS-846EL1 is an older SAS1 expander backplane which has problems with disks over 2TB.

Just make sure to get a Supermicro case with a BPN-SAS2-846EL1 which is the newer SAS2 expander backplane and works with current 8TB drives at least so far.

I got one of these recently for $245
http://www.ebay.com/itm/321835852460?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

They sell it in other configurations too like with the PSU if you want.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...Server-1PSU-/321837581920?hash=item4aef03c660

+motherboard:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...y-4U-Server-/191436795074?hash=item2c9285acc2

+rails
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...r-2PS-RAILS-/321838565726?hash=item4aef12c95e

Make sure to make an offer as the buy it now price is way too high.

Thanks for the info. I tried offers on several of them and nothing went though. I'd rather not pay more than $400 for a case + rails + dual PSU

 

[Fuganater]

I'm still waiting to hear back from jgreco but I could always buy the SAS version and replace it with a SAS2 one. I'd only be out like $50

 

[SirMaster]

I'm still waiting to hear back from jgreco but I could always buy the SAS version and replace it with a SAS2 one. I'd only be out like $50

Your link is for the same SAS1 backplane (BPN-SAS-846EL1)

 

[Fuganater]

Crap...