Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 + CSE-PTJBOD-CB3 JBOD Power Board IPMI compatibility

[Psynapsx]

hi guys,

So I bought a Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 a while ago and no surprise, the fans are running at 100% (very loud) since they are connected directly to the backplane.
My JBOD has the CB2 board.
Recently I came across the CB3 board (CSE-PTJBOD-CB3) and found out that it has an RJ45 connector and IPMI and it provides some basic functions such as fan control and JBOD shut down.
I did not find any information about compatibility.
Can I use it with my 847E26-RJBOD1? What do you think?
I know that there is no RJ45 bracket on this chassis. I will drill a hole and run my cable through it or something similar.

 

[Psynapsx]

up

 

[artlessknave]

there should be no reason you can't replace it electrically, the only complication should be mounting holes and the placement of the network cable
the biggest problems I spotted with that thing is that is its like double the cost of a full motherboard/ram/cpu combo
I created an enclosure with x9scm/e3-1220/8gb ram for like 1/3 the price; this way my ipmi port is already in the right place, and I just stuck freenas on it, which allows email alerts or whatever I might find useful
there is an official bracket that goes with it...but they are VERY hard to find, and almost the same cost as the cb3 board itself

 

[Psynapsx]

there should be no reason you can't replace it electrically, the only complication should be mounting holes and the placement of the network cable
the biggest problems I spotted with that thing is that is its like double the cost of a full motherboard/ram/cpu combo
I created an enclosure with x9scm/e3-1220/8gb ram for like 1/3 the price; this way my ipmi port is already in the right place, and I just stuck freenas on it, which allows email alerts or whatever I might find useful
there is an official bracket that goes with it...but they are VERY hard to find, and almost the same cost as the cb3 board itself

thank you.
In the end I decided to buy the CB3 board, it costs 160 USD new.
I have very little free space in the rack to add a separate box and I cannot install a full motherboard in this JBOD as there is very little space in it. I like CB3.

For anyone looking to do the conversion:
I found the official Supermicro CB2 to CB3 conversion mounting bracket for like 5 USD new, part number: MCP-120-84702-0N
The IPMI LAN extension cable is also needed, part number: CBL-NTWK-0587 (16 USD new). The bracket for the extension cable: MCP-120-84706-0N (4 USD). The cable to connect the backplanes to the CB3 board: CBL-CDAT-0601 (3 USD). You need total two, for the front and rear backplanes. I already had one because the rear backplane was connected to the CB2 board already, but not the front backplane for some reason.
This is how it looks:

Issues so far:
1. It seems the CB3 board only detects one PSU for some reason. When I log in to the IPMI interface, only one PSU is listed as active there, the other one is not detected. The cable from the power distributor is connected to the CB3 board and it detects one of the PSUs, just not both of them. However, both PSUs are working fine.
Anybody has any idea why?

2. one of the LED on the rear backplane is red. I checked the manual and it indicates fan failure. The fans are working fine, maybe it just indicates fan failure because no fans are connected to the backplane? They are connected to the CB3 board so that I have speed control. According to the user manual I can short pins on the backplane to disable the fan failure indicator but I'm out of jumpers for this backplane.

But overall I'm very satisfied with the result, fans are a lot quieter now plus we have manual fan RPM control via the IPMI command line.
Everything is working as it should, including front panel buttons and front led indicators such as power on, network activity, error, etc.
All temperature sensors inside the jbod are correctly reported too.

 

[artlessknave]

nice. part of the problem for me is that shipping costs more than the parts, if i can even get it shipped at all (canada) (a CB3 off ebay is like $266 CAD)
fans not connected would count as failed fans. should be able to just ignore that or jumper it like you noted. you should be able to get like a pack of jumpers
if you have one of the jbod specific designs then ya, you wouldnt even have the option of using a regular motherboard. many of the jbod chassis are just regular chassis with the cb2 or cb3 added by either supermicro or a user.
I am curious where you found those parts, new, for such low prices.

 

[Psynapsx]

nice. part of the problem for me is that shipping costs more than the parts, if i can even get it shipped at all (canada) (a CB3 off ebay is like $266 CAD)
fans not connected would count as failed fans. should be able to just ignore that or jumper it like you noted. you should be able to get like a pack of jumpers
if you have one of the jbod specific designs then ya, you wouldnt even have the option of using a regular motherboard. many of the jbod chassis are just regular chassis with the cb2 or cb3 added by either supermicro or a user.
I am curious where you found those parts, new, for such low prices.

Great thanks, I will buy some jumpers.

I bought the CB3 from this retailer in case anybody needs it and find this thread via Google. They ship worldwide for 35 EUR:
new: CB3 new board
they also have refurbished: CB3 refurbished board

The other parts are from this store, they ship worldwide from Poland and have very large stock from Supermicro stuff and very reasonable prices:
1. CBL-NTWK-0587
2. MCP-120-84706-0N
3. MCP-120-84702-0N
4. CBL-CDAT-0601

 

[artlessknave]

ah. that was the only place i found them other than ebay...and when I tried to get a quote for 1 item from them it was like 60$ shipping, which was just way too much for me for parts I didn't really need.
on the bright side, this one post might now have more concise info on these jbod boards than anywhere else on the internet.... :/

 

[Psynapsx]

yeah I was surprised how little info is available about this on the internet.
I also found this English power point presentation on some russian website, it looks like some sort of internal Supermicro presentation?
It is marked as "confidential" in the top right corner.
Anyway, it has a lot of information about jbod boards not really found anywhere else (not even in the CB3 user manual) so I converted it to pdf and attached it in case anybody needs it.

 

[artlessknave]

it's a consequence of supermicro being primarily an enterprise vendor. the majority of their info is available through support contracts from specialists, because enterprise customers often just pay a vendor to handle all the details, instead of trying to find the cheapest option; it's more important, in the enterprise space, for a guaranteed solution with support, because downtime often costs more than the support and hardware combined.
not really sure why that presentation would be confidential, that mostly looks like info available on the website, or the rest of the internet, albiet not all in the same place.

 

[artlessknave]

on a semi-related note, if you happen to want to control power to the jbod IPMI from a script or cron..
ipmitool -I lan -U IPMIuser -H <IPaddress> -f /passwordfile chassis power status
ipmitool -I lan -U IPMIuser -H <IPaddress> -f /passwordfile chassis power on
ipmitool -I lan -U IPMIuser -H <IPaddress> -f /passwordfile chassis power off
I was trying to get it so that it would power up my jbod on bootup, but it seems like it would start it too late in the process to be of use (even preinit is after mounting filesystems, which I'm assuming would mean the pool would fail)

 

[Brandito]

thank you.
In the end I decided to buy the CB3 board, it costs 160 USD new.
I have very little free space in the rack to add a separate box and I cannot install a full motherboard in this JBOD as there is very little space in it. I like CB3.

For anyone looking to do the conversion:
I found the official Supermicro CB2 to CB3 conversion mounting bracket for like 5 USD new, part number: MCP-120-84702-0N
The IPMI LAN extension cable is also needed, part number: CBL-NTWK-0587 (16 USD new). The bracket for the extension cable: MCP-120-84706-0N (4 USD). The cable to connect the backplanes to the CB3 board: CBL-CDAT-0601 (3 USD). You need total two, for the front and rear backplanes. I already had one because the rear backplane was connected to the CB2 board already, but not the front backplane for some reason.
This is how it looks:

Old post but...

I just picked up a CB3 for my 847E26-RJBOD1. I only installed the board and adapter bracket so far. I have the I2C cables ordered for monitoring the backplanes but everything works.

I'm curious where you mounted the Lan adapter and bracket since the chassis doesn't have anywhere to install it. I'm just going to run a lan cable through a spare drive bay out the rear of the case, might 3d print a 3.5" bay cover with the ability to pop in a keystone jack.

The lan adapter seems mostly like a nice to have assuming you have a chassis to mount it in.