kuloch
Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2022
- Messages
- 4
I'm building a NAS server and would appreciate clarification on a couple seemingly vague or potentially controversial details that leave me a bit confused after a couple months of frequently reading up on various guides, common mistakes, build recommendations, etc. I'll split the questions into separate threads to keep each discussion limited in scope.
Where are the non-SAS drives typically put in a server chassis with many bays that are all on a SAS backplane?
I'm aware that an SATA drive can be used on a SAS backplane, but I'm specifically talking about wanting to also use the motherboard's onboard SATA ports.
For example, I'm considering a Supermicro CSE-847 (24 front bays, 12 rear, all on backplanes). Perhaps it's uncommon to use the motherboard's SATA ports in such a chassis (preferring M.2 or PCIe slots for any non-SAS drives?), but I can't find a good recommendation on where to put the SATA drives. The only option (using above chassis as example) seems to be yanking out the rear backplane and running SATA cables to those bays from the motherboard. But this feels like a kludge where I'm likely missing a better way. I've built my own PCs for many years, but SAS (and enterprise-grade in general) was brand new to me 3 months ago (and yes, I've read many primers and guides since).
My preference is to have a decent few ports available for SAS drives and still be able to use the onboard SATA ports, such as for an array of mirrored SSDs (where the SAS drives will be for a raidz2 pool). If it's relevant, I've already purchased a Supermicro X12SCA-5F and Intel Xeon W-1350 (and yes, I'm aware this is only supported by last week's Bluefin release).
Or, given my example chassis above (and depending on my other question):
Would I likely be better off using the rear SAS backplane for SATA SSD drives and generally ignoring the onboard SATA ports (or intentionally underutilizing them)?
Where are the non-SAS drives typically put in a server chassis with many bays that are all on a SAS backplane?
I'm aware that an SATA drive can be used on a SAS backplane, but I'm specifically talking about wanting to also use the motherboard's onboard SATA ports.
For example, I'm considering a Supermicro CSE-847 (24 front bays, 12 rear, all on backplanes). Perhaps it's uncommon to use the motherboard's SATA ports in such a chassis (preferring M.2 or PCIe slots for any non-SAS drives?), but I can't find a good recommendation on where to put the SATA drives. The only option (using above chassis as example) seems to be yanking out the rear backplane and running SATA cables to those bays from the motherboard. But this feels like a kludge where I'm likely missing a better way. I've built my own PCs for many years, but SAS (and enterprise-grade in general) was brand new to me 3 months ago (and yes, I've read many primers and guides since).
My preference is to have a decent few ports available for SAS drives and still be able to use the onboard SATA ports, such as for an array of mirrored SSDs (where the SAS drives will be for a raidz2 pool). If it's relevant, I've already purchased a Supermicro X12SCA-5F and Intel Xeon W-1350 (and yes, I'm aware this is only supported by last week's Bluefin release).
Or, given my example chassis above (and depending on my other question):
Would I likely be better off using the rear SAS backplane for SATA SSD drives and generally ignoring the onboard SATA ports (or intentionally underutilizing them)?