Freenas using N40L HP Microserver with more than 6 drives?

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I am using a N40L HP Microserver as a secondary backup only device for my primary freenas box on my network (see sig).

I have it packed with 6 drives which is physically the most drives I can put in the unit. I have been toying with the idea of getting some sort of external enclosure to go beyond 6 drives. I have tons of older 2tb drives sitting around & I would love to make a large RaidZ3 array with 12 drives (6 in the HP N40L, 6 in an enclosure connected).

The HP has an Esata port (which I am using now). Is there any way to leverage all the drives I have now?

Again this box is only as a backup & I would love to figure a way to keep in in the loop as a backup but I need more storage.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[m0nkey_]

The HP has an Esata port (which I am using now). Is there any way to leverage all the drives I have now?

Most of the eSATA expanders are pretty bad and have a long history of screwing up when you least expect it. If the eSATA port is connected to an Intel controller, there is no hope of it working. You're better off putting in higher capacity drives than dealing with an external enclosure.

 

[danb35]

It'd be easy enough to throw in a SAS controller and plug it into a JBOD. Possibly more economical to just put in larger disks.

 

[gpsguy]

Given the direction you seem to be heading, I'd retire the N40L.

Build a new primary machine capable of going to 128GB+ of RAM and use your current hardware for the secondary machine.

 

[RichTJ99]

I am trying to get away with spending as little as possible BUT the cost of a new box & new drives is much less than the cost of trying to recover data.

My overall goal is to have all storage on the freenas boxes - no local storage beyond 256 SSD's in a number of home desktops/laptops.

To do that & not have a bunch of copies of data all over means i need to know my backups are solid.

Again I am not against this N40L sipping electricity as yet another backup location (just in case) - i have the drives & it does work.

 

[RichTJ99]

I found a HP DL380 G6 with two Xeon E5540 & 64 gigs of ecc ram for sale locally. Person is asking $300 for it. Would that make a good box? I think it may only have onboard raid - not sure if i can do individual jbod drives.

 

[ovizii]

Hi,
I have it packed with 6 drives which is physically the most drives I can put in the unit.

Would you mind sharing a picture where and how you packed the 6th drive into it? I am only using the 4 bays + 1 in the CD-ROM bay but would love to add a 6th one.

 

[gpsguy]

Most people who do this, stack the 2 extra disks in the CD-ROM bay. You can buy s (non HP) bracket to do it. I don't have the link to it handy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I used the X-Swing -

http://tech-reviews.co.uk/reviews/noiseblocker-nb-x-swing/

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--cPR03ohX--/18s04yfqcg0rrjpg.jpg

Two drives specifically for the optical bay.


FYI - on my project, I bought 4x 6tb WD reds & am planning on starting with a Raidz1 file system.

I guess i could always upgrade later if needed.

THanks,
Rich

 

[ovizii]

now that looks like an ingenious design, I'd never have thought I could stack 2 on top of each other. Gotta check this out tomorrow morning asap!

P.S. Sorry for interrupting the thread with my non-related question.

 

[RichTJ99]

Does the TS140 have 6 sata ports (5 internal, 1 esata)?