IBM M1015 with sas expander?

[hellokevin11]

I got a great deal on a 16 bay 3u chassis with a backplane, but it turns out to be an sas expander.
Will freenas be ok running 16 drives off one connector on the M1015 card (it mode flashed)

Chassis: Chenbro RM31616R

 

[Johnnie Black]

Should work fine

Sent from my SM-A605FN using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

I got a great deal on a 16 bay 3u chassis with a backplane, but it turns out to be an sas expander.

Model numbers matter. If it is a SAS1 expander, some of those were a bit picky. If it is a SAS2 expander, it would likely be fine.
Can you give more details about what you have?

 

[kngpwr]

Since the Chenbro product page says "Supports 12Gb/s 16-port Expander backplane" I'm going to (safely?) assume its a modern SAS3 expander. As long as the backplane is a single in to 16 out design you might be fine. In my experience with these style chassis, that is rare. Most use a 1 to 1 SFF8087 for 4 drives or a 1x SFF8087 to quad SATA arrangement. You'll need some details about the exact config you purchased since it seems like there are multiple options.

 

[Johnnie Black]

According to the link the OP posted the backplane is either SAS2 or SAS3, so he should e fine.

 

[Chris Moore]

Chassis: Chenbro RM31616R

I don't think that was there when I looked at this the first time... I don't think I would have missed it seeing as how I have a Chenbro chassis myself.
The Chenbro 24 port expander backplandes in my chassis worked perfectly with my Dell H310 SAS controller (which is based on the same LSI SAS2008 chip like the IBM M1015) with one cable going to each backplane. I later upgraded to a newer controller card, but it was not because of any problem with the LSI SAS2008 chip. These older cards are PCIe 2.0 and the chips run a bit hotter than the newer chip.
If you already have the M1015, it should be fine, but if you are looking to buy, I would suggest going with one of these instead:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
It is based on the LSI9207 chip and connects at PCIe 3.0 speed to the system board. The one I linked to is the HP / OEM card but it looks exactly the same as the LSI branded card that I have.

 

[Johnnie Black]

These older cards are PCIe 2.0 and the chips run a bit hotter than the newer chip.
If you already have the M1015, it should be fine, but if you are looking to buy, I would suggest going with one of these instead:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6G...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
It is based on the LSI9207 chip and connects at PCIe 3.0 speed to the system board. The one I linked to is the HP / OEM card but it looks exactly the same as the LSI branded card that I have.

Actually it's the other way around, the 9207 controllers are based on the SAS2308 chip, they are PCIe 3.0 but use a little more power than the SAS2008 based controllers due to the higher clock speed they run, though it's not a huge difference, about a couple of watts.

 

[Chris Moore]

Actually it's the other way around, the 9207 controllers are based on the SAS2308 chip

I get mixed up sometimes. It was a rough day at work.