Help with HBA setup, sectioning off disks.

M

mkyb14

Well-Known Member
Mar 17, 2017
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I've recently purchased a super micro 846 chassis (24bay) case to move away from a small box. Looking to do large storage for Plex and everything else digital in our lives.

In researching through many forums, I'm trying to figure out if I can use 0-6 bay's for a raid 6 for the host, and bay's 7-23 for JBOD. I've got a 9270-8i, and a M1015 flashed appropriately.

In looking over the manual for the device, I can't seem to understand if it's possible from the backplane to pass certain sets of drives to one controller, and JBOD the rest to the other.

https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/BPN-SAS2-846EL.pdf

Shot in the dark on this one, thanks for help in understanding in advance.
 
Hi,

mkyb14 said:
In researching through many forums, I'm trying to figure out if I can use 0-6 bay's for a raid 6 for the host, and bay's 7-23 for JBOD. I've got a 9270-8i, and a M1015 flashed appropriately.
Click to expand...
I don't think that this is possible with these Controllers. Are you sure that you like grouping the disks 7+17?
Every SFF-8087 connector at your backplane serves 4 disks. So one of these connectors would have to be "split" to reach your aim.
The only way I can see to build this 7+17 is to buy one RAID-Controller (including a SAS expander) for all 24 disks.

8+16 would be possible in my opinion: Take the 9270-8i to build the 8-disk-RAID6 and the M1015 to do the 16-disk-JBOD. But in this case you also need a SAS Expander with at least 6 SFF-8087 connectors.

...Hoping that all this is correct and helpful. ;-)

Greets
Stephan
 
7+17 doesn't have to be.. I was just looking for something simple that could keep the host up with a disk going down. raid 1 or something for proxmox and the VM host to reside on. I'd like to take the rest and passthrough to a VM of Ubuntu or OMV (since you need a usb key for unRaid). I'm trying to figure out the best way to have stupid simple storage, using a mix of drive sizes. After researching ZFS, it's not for me (FreeNAS). Unraid requires a USB key to register, and it doesn't look like you can do boot-passthrough usb yet with proxmox.
 
Fact is that you can't serve all 24 disks with your current hardware - you need a SAS expander.
I would suggest this:

1. Buy an 8x SFF-8087 SAS expander like this one
2. Buy (or still have) 8 SFF-8087 cables
3. Connect the two ports of your 9270-8i with the SAS expander
4. Connect the remaining six ports of the SAS expander with the ports at your backplane
5. Configure RAIDs the way you like it*

*I would do it like this: two disks into a RAID-1 for Proxmox VE and the remaining 22 disks into a RAID-10 for the vDisks (or a RAID-6, if you need more useable space)

Many greets
Stephan
 
I think you don't need extra cables for your backplane. I have a similar setup with a 16 bay enclosure and similar SAS Backplane (BPN-SAS2-836EL1). You just can connect only one cable and still use all bays! There is an expander chip directly on the backplane!

Just make an software (mdadm) with openmediavault and forget about the rest. It will fit all your needs!
 
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mcflym said:
There is an expander chip directly on the backplane!
Click to expand...
Cool, I didn't know this, thanks! Sometimes reading the manuals is very useful... :)
Just make an software (mdadm) with openmediavault and forget about the rest. It will fit all your needs!
Click to expand...
I love mdadm too, but keep in mind that it's not supported by Proxmox team. In my opinion that's no problem for private use, but take care if you use it in a productive company environment.

So he could use his 9270-8i (what a wonderful RAID controller, by the way), connect it with his backplane with one cable, and either do my suggested "RAID-1 + RAID-10" solution, or do JBOD with all disks and solve everything else with mdadm.

Greets
Stephan
 
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For clarification... Not supported in proxmox, but the use case will be in a OMV VM. So proxmox shouldn't care about it.

That's exactly how I use it for 2 years till now with approx. 40 TB (raid6 over 12 4tb Drives)
 
exactly.

But for my private needs it isn't necessary to run the host on a RAID. A single SSD is fast enough to handle 6 VMs (3x win: Win7 "banking", Win 8.1 Steam streaming server, win7 testing; 3x linux: plex, OMV, pyload) in parallel.
 
ok, so I've run into a problem hardware wise, and need some help figuring out options.

I've got this 24 bay super micro 846 case, and the motherboard it came with (dual xeon 5500). My original intention was to take my x11ssh-ln4f and put it into this case, but there are some cooling issues (noctua fan too big etc) that are stopping me from frankensteining them together. After doing some researching, this link shows you could use a cheap MB, and go external. This having potentially my 24 bay case, cheap MB with the sas expander going external to my other (newer) server. Running proxomx, and passing through the m1015 to the VM.
https://www.servethehome.com/sas-expanders-diy-cheap-low-cost-jbod-enclosures-raid/

So my question is, since I can't make use of the dual power supply's on my newer board in the older case, can I follow the idea in the link above. Supermicro 24bay, use the older MB it came with (no cpu/ram) get some card that the backplane attaches to, passing out the back with the external cable to my mATX case, with appropriate card to recieve it and passthrough to the VM of omv?

Hardware I have today:
Supermicro 24 bay, MB =X8DAH+-F
mATX cooler master, x11ssh-ln4f, (some SBA adapter card to receive it externally).

Sorry for the convoluted setup, trying to make use of the massive case for JBOD storage for plex and everything else in our lives.
 
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That should work. But as I said just buy the shroud and the cooler and you are fine ;)
 
Mcflym, I guess I'm not understanding what you mean. I have the original board and cooler and case flow for the super micro. I was trying to find the least power intensive way to run a jbod setup. The article above talked about using a motherboard with no cpu and ram to install a pic card and do essentially what the cb1 card above would do. Are you saying the original x8dah MB will power on and pass through a pic to external sff card? Or am I completely missed understanding
 
Ok, what I understood:
You wanted to put your x11ssh-ln4f into the case, but you have cooling issues because of your noctua cooler

I say:
Put your x11ssh-ln4f (with a hba-controller card to connect the backplane) in and use the original cooling equipment

:)

Or what it is the point I don't get?
 
no you are 100% correct. I was going back and forth in my head on what to do, and decided on keeping them separate once I learned of the supermicro expander board. I'd like to not take a machine and dedicate it to unraid when I could use OMV with passthrough to the host (X11ssh). So for now the large supermicro box will just be a dumb large storage unit passing everything out to the other box. I'll be sure to post a picture once I build the server rack so you can see the madness. Thank you everyone for the help and direction!
 
But why not using one box with all hardware in it? I don't see the benefit of your way? You will have a lot more power usage, issues regarding power up and down your stand alone jbod box, etc.

Again, I have a similar setup (all in one box) with a 16bay box and it works perfectly. There are only benefits and no disadvantages. You don't need extra cables, no extra power board, your board can controll the power of the HDDs directly, etc...

:)
 
I agree, if OVM was the only think I am running. But based off the case design, and the SAS Expander inside of it, I'd like to have the ability to have a RAID 1 for proxmox for failure and the 24 drives available. The inside of the case doesn't allow for it. And from what I can tell, my expander doesn't have a connection for every four drives. or a seperate spot for drives to be used for a small raid pairing. That's why I was looking originally to figure out a way to have proxmox on a raid 1, and then a bunch of drives in some share environment where I could dump video, pics and others and serve them out via VM's for plex etc..

https://photos.app.goo.gl/J5VRi9wytmpcC6wY2

From what I can tell from the manual I look up online, it's either all or expansion based on what I've read. So I was looking at this as just a large dumb box. Again, first time going through this type of build and I might be over looking things.
 
Looking for some help with a Supermicro SC846 case, using a SAS-846EL1 backplane. I've installed a JBPWR2 v1 in the case following the manual. All I get is a constant beep. I've made a video of what I'm experiencing and the connections. I've yet to add hdd's to it and was working on making sure everything powered up and the eventual passthrough to proxmox. For right now, I cannot figure out what it's beeping on power up and cannot find any documentation.

Looking for any insight.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fqDWxljUG7FnJJMr2
 
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