FreeNAS Drive Rackmount Enclosure Recommendations

[mellman]

I'm currently running FreeNAS on an R630 with a SAS card connected to an external Rackable SE3016 enclosure. It's filled with 2TB drives, and I'd like to upgrade to 6 or 8tb drives.

What recommendations are there for SAS enclosures so I can add them to my existing FREENAS setup to copy data between the two enclosures.

 

[Chris Moore]

I am guessing that you are talking about a Dell PowerEdge R630 server? What kind of SAS card? How is it connected to the Rackable, exactly? Did you want to put those larger drives in the Rackable because in the next sentence you are asking for recommendations for SAS enclosures to add to the existing FreeNAS?

If you could give a better description of what you have and where you want to go, I am sure that someone can help you.

 

[mellman]

I am using both ports on my SAS Card, so I plan on buying a new second SAS Card to connect a new enclosure.

I don't want to / can't put the larger drives in the rackable because it doesn't support larger than 2TB disks, that's why I'm asking for recommendations for a new rack mount enclosure. Basically want something similar to the Rackable SE3016 enclosure that will support larger drives.

 

[Chris Moore]

This one has 24 bays instead of 16 but it should be exactly what you are looking for:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...l-Port-JBOD-SATA-SAS-2-Backplane/202041218886
The reason that I asked for details about your SAS controller and how you have the Rackable connected is because you may very well be able to run one SAS interconnect to this enclosure and one to the Rackable enclosure and have them both connected at the same time while you transfer data. You would (theoretically) get faster data transfer with both cables connected, but it might save needing an extra interface card for the connection. I am guessing that the Rackable will go away once the data is transferred to the new drive subsystem?
The more you give me to work with, the better I can help you.
If you do buy another SAS controller for the new enclosure, this is a good one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-LSI-6...-12DNW-H200E-Full-Height-Bracket/292347876014
It will probably need to be flashed to the IT mode firmware but that is pretty easy to do.

 

[mellman]

Hey there,

So I already have another newer SAS card, I think it's an H200 actually. So I was planning to just use it instead longer term. Thanks for the suggestion though you're right it probably would be faster if I did the transfer on the same card. I'll think about that.

With regards to the enclosure, Is SuperMicro the best option? It's a little more than i was hoping to have to spend, but for something rack mount dual PSU I guess it's not too bad, was just hoping to not have to dump a lot into it since its just a home lab.

Thank you very much for your help!

 

[Chris Moore]

With regards to the enclosure, Is SuperMicro the best option? It's a little more than i was hoping to have to spend, but for something rack mount dual PSU I guess it's not too bad, was just hoping to not have to dump a lot into it since its just a home lab.

It is very good quality and a "no assembly required" option, but you could probably put something together for less cash if you are willing to do some work buying parts and putting them together. The thing about it is, SAS2 expander enclosures are still in pretty high demand because you need to have SAS2 to access the high capacity drives.

 

[Johnnie Black]

The thing about it is, SAS2 expander enclosures are still in pretty high demand because you need to have SAS2 to access the high capacity drives.

Not necessarily, Supermicro SAS1 expander backplanes are usually limited to 2TB, but it's not a rule, I'm using SAS1 enclosures with expander that support >2TB disks, though they are for 5 disks only and pretty hard to find, an option for the OP is the IBM EXP3000, relatively cheap and also known to work with >2TB devices.

 

[mellman]

Exp3000s price certainly is more attractive than the supermicro device. Do they all work with large drives or is it a crap shoot

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[Johnnie Black]

Do they all work with large drives or is it a crap shoot

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...p3000-allow-direct-pass-through-to-hba.52515/

Edit: as to if all work, they should, worst case it may need a firmware update.