supermicro JBOD disks not showing up

[spacerainbow000]

hi, I have a supermicro 4U 44 disk JBOD unit 847E1C-R1K23JBOD unit and can't get the disks to show up.

mobo: Huananzhi x79 16D
CPU: 2x intel xeon e5-2690V2
RAM: 256GB samsung ECC DDR3
drives: two 1TB WD Blue SSDs (for SLOG), one 256GB NVME WD green SSD (for boot)
PCIE: an NVME-PCIE adapter for the WD green, and a dell PERC 200 HBA https://www.newegg.com/p/14G-000T-0...sQlQNOGRA_nwjBnXMOZAulksvB1dkBvoLNE3oxcTlDO7M
the JBOD has a bunch of EXOS x16s in it

the JBOD is connected to the HBA mentioned above which was recommended to me in another thread. the problem i am having is that none of the disks in the JBOD show up in the disks menu in the trueNAS UI. I have confirmed that the JBOD is configured correctly with regards to the internal wiring of the SAS cables (front backplane -> rear backplane -> SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 port -> HBA). how can i diagnose this problem? i dont really know where to start

 

[Ericloewe]

two 1TB WD Blue SSDs (for SLOG),

Not at all adequate for SLOG, though it's not clear you would even need one.

That aside, you need to narrow this down:

1. Do the disks work?
2. Does the disk chassis work?
3. Does the HBA work?
4. Are the cables all working?

 

[NugentS]

Not an expert with JBOD shelves here - but I agree with @Ericloewe - those WD Blue are definately not SLOG material. Entirely the wrong kind of SSD

 

[spacerainbow000]

understood - i have been considering replacing those drives with intel d3-S4510 SSDs or maybe a different used intel drive, but i worry that these enterprise drives might produce too much heat for my relatively low-airflow setup. will these drives overheat in a low-airflow but open configuration (haf xb evo) or do they rely on the airflow from 1/2u jet engine fans to not overheat? can i reallocate the blues to L2ARC or should i just use them for something else entirely? can I have multiple different L2ARC caches/mixed hardware?

regarding checking individual components -

- i am absolutely sure that at least one of these disks is fully functional, so in a situation where every other part worked as expected i would expect to see at least one disk, i dont see anything currently. a couple might be bad but most of them should be working and at least one is tested and definitely good
- the chassis works, i could try to test all the individual parts of it but i am really not sure how i would do that. it boots, beeps a bit, then spins all the disks inserted into it. i will check ipmi. seller indicated it was in working condition and pulled from a live environment in a fully functional state
- i installed the HBA yesterday right out of the packaging so i doubt that it is damaged or otherwise nonfunctional but maybe it's not supported or is missing a driver or something, idk anything about HBAs. i should be able to diagnose issues with this from cli in truenas right? how do i go about assessing the status of the HBA?
- I only have one SAS cable ATM, i will go get another one but i have treated the one i have very gently so i wouldnt expect it to be the cause of the problem

thank you for your help

 

[NugentS]

understood - i have been considering replacing those drives with intel d3-S4510 SSDs or maybe a different used intel drive, but i worry that these enterprise drives might produce too much heat for my relatively low-airflow setup. will these drives overheat in a low-airflow but open configuration (haf xb evo) or do they rely on the airflow from 1/2u jet engine fans to not overheat? can i reallocate the blues to L2ARC or should i just use them for something else entirely? can I have multiple different L2ARC caches/mixed hardware?

regarding checking individual components -

- i am absolutely sure that at least one of these disks is fully functional, so in a situation where every other part worked as expected i would expect to see at least one disk, i dont see anything currently. a couple might be bad but most of them should be working and at least one is tested and definitely good
- the chassis works, i could try to test all the individual parts of it but i am really not sure how i would do that. it boots, beeps a bit, then spins all the disks inserted into it. i will check ipmi. seller indicated it was in working condition and pulled from a live environment in a fully functional state
- i installed the HBA yesterday right out of the packaging so i doubt that it is damaged or otherwise nonfunctional but maybe it's not supported or is missing a driver or something, idk anything about HBAs. i should be able to diagnose issues with this from cli in truenas right? how do i go about assessing the status of the HBA?
- I only have one SAS cable ATM, i will go get another one but i have treated the one i have very gently so i wouldnt expect it to be the cause of the problem

thank you for your help

Not sure the 4510 is appropriate as a SLOG either.
Slog Requirements:
1. Fast - OK its an SSD - which is good, not as good as an appropriate Optane (which you can still get). Also depends on what the data vdevs are
2. High Endurance - Fail - the 4510 is a read intensive drive = low endurance (for enterprise)
3. PLP - Yes (I believe)

4510 = 1 DWPD = Read Intensive
4610 = 3 DWPD = Mixed Mode
3710 = 10DWPD = High Endurance. Dunno if there is a 4710

A SLOG, in a steady state is always written to, and never read from

Ideal Slogs are Optane 900p (or better), or Radian Memory Systems 300(or 200)/16G - I think the 8G is a bit small for a 10Gb interface. There may be others as well.

 

[spacerainbow000]

okay it is definitely not the cable and is probably the HBA. searching the forums for perc200 shows all kinds of problems and crazy stuff like https://forums.overclockers.com.au/threads/a-cheaper-m1015-the-dell-h200-and-a-howto-flash.1045376/ ... does anyone have a recommendation for an HBA that will work out of the box with this JBOD unit, without requiring any flashing or having to convert cables or anything like that? one that can support 44 drives? ideally something not more than a couple hundred bucks? i am very tired of buying cards to connect this thing that dont work, so i would ideally like to hear from someone who has actually gotten this working without having to fiddle with it

 

[NugentS]

Look at the Art of Server on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ss...fserver&_oac=1&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l170197

Can I have a better idea of what hardware you are using please. from a Case PoV. Are there multiple cases - so you need both internal and external SAS ports?

 

[spacerainbow000]

all the hardware in the original post is inside a cooler master haf xb evo, i picked the case because it's trading off space in exchange for reduced noise. the SSDs all live inside this case, it has four hot swap bays and an internal bay that can fit a few more 2.5s, and the mobo has an nvme slot plus i have an nvme pcie card. all the disk based drives live in the JBOD, and i need a pcie card that can connect the jbod to this system and expose the disks from the 2 backplanes to the truenas system running on the computer in the xb evo case. the jbod only has sff-8088 ports, so i would prefer a pcie HBA that has two sff8088 ports. i tried previously using a passive pcie 8088 to 8087 converter to connect the jbod to a raid card in IT mode with two internal 8087 sas ports, this did not work. i cant be the only one to have ever connected a truenas system to a supermicro JBOD, and im hoping to find someone who can identify an HBA that will work with the JBOD without configuration and that has been confirmed to actually work on a real system - i'm extremely reluctant to buy another card without some real evidence that it will work with my setup

 

[NugentS]

Does your jbod have a SAS backplane - if so what model? How many port?
Some photos of the unit, inc lcoseups of the backplane might help

 

[spacerainbow000]

there is some stuff in the way but i am confident that the rear backplane is a bpn-sas2-847el1 and the front backplane is identical save for the few extra slots. docs say it's a sas2 backplane, so i might choose to route the first backplane to the second adapter since my HDA has two sff8088 points anyway.

one thing i realized looking at the spec for the backplane, i fould that it was wired wrong acording to the docs - i rectified this and it didn't fix anything, so i am out of ideas