readynas 4200 conversion

[drkmachine]

I recently received a readynas 4200 rackmount server for little to nothing. I am looking to eventually replace the motherboard with one that is more compatible with FreeNAS (not to mention easier to find documentation on). But I would like to make some use of this in the meantime while I pull together the funds for the rebuild.
Currently the system has a 2U 12 bay Supermicro chassis,a Supermicro X7SB3-NI015 rev 1.02 motherboard with an onboard LSI 1068e. And the backplane is a SAS-826TQ-NIO15 rev 3.1.

I know the LSI 1068e doesn't support drives greater than 2TB, so I was wondering if it made any sense to disable the onboard and add a more compatible HBA. Would there be any drive size limits with the backplane or would it even work for what I am thinking.

 

[Dice]

Would there be any drive size limits with the backplane

There might be. Typically, if the description of the backplane does not explicitly state "SAS2" it ..will not accept drives larger than 2TB. There might be exceptions.
https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/BPN-SAS-826TQ.pdf

 

[drkmachine]

if that is the manual for it, then wouldn't this also be it?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5EM2RC6633
And if so then according to that it would be SAS2 compatible. Or am I completely off base? That NIO15 on the motherboard and the back plane has made finding correct information a bit difficult.

 

[Dice]

I find the same information on other vendor's sites too. How interesting. Perhaps due to the 'one on one' SATA connectivity, there is no expander circuit that could cause problems, perhaps.

Maybe @depasseg has some ideas.
Is BPN-SAS-826TQ-NI015 for sure compatible with +2TB sized drives?

 

[Arwen]

Looking at the disk backplane manual, I'd say it can't have a SAS expander chip.
(SAS version 1 expander chips would be the 2TB disk size limiting factor.) SAS
expanders take few host ports, (generally 4 or 8), and make more disk ports, like
8 or 12. If not doing that, then no need for the SAS expander chip, (and it's cost).

So it is likely that back plane supports larger disks. Of course, without a SATA or
SAS2 port to test, you can't be sure.

 

[drkmachine]

The motherboard itself has 6 SATA ports and 8 SAS ports. I cannot find anything about the board supporting larger than 2TB drives I know the onboard LSI 1068e does not. I guess I am just assuming that the SATA ports on the motherboard do not support larger than 2TB drives either.

 

[Arwen]

The motherboard itself has 6 SATA ports and 8 SAS ports. I cannot find anything about the board supporting larger than 2TB drives I know the onboard LSI 1068e does not. I guess I am just assuming that the SATA ports on the motherboard do not support larger than 2TB drives either.

If you have a disk larger than 2TB, and are willing to setup a test, give a SATA port a try. Basically;

• Re-wire one of the disk slots to a SATA port
• Put in the >2TB disk into that disk slot
• Install boot media
• After boot, check the size of the disk.

 

[drkmachine]

sorry for the delayed response. It looks like the motherboard doesn't support larger drives, The bios reports a 4tb drive as only 1.9tb. Was hoping to avoid needing to upgrade the motherboard at least for a little while, still unsure about that backplane though.

 

[jumpbackjack]

Hi drkmachine,

Did you ever get to find out if the backplane supports drives larger than 2TB? I just got an old readynas 4200 chassis and I'm planning on swapping the MB to a Supermicro X10SL7-F. The drives I am currently using all are 3Tb and higher. Your feedback would really help.

 

[Stux]

If the backplane has TQ or Direct Attach SAS/SATA ports, then its just a passive backplane, and shouldn't care. Its all up to the HBA.

If the motherboard itself is limited to less than 2TB and has an open PCIe slot, then adding an HBA which does support >2TB drives, and the suitable breakout cables should resolve the issue.

 

[Stux]

Hi drkmachine,

Did you ever get to find out if the backplane supports drives larger than 2TB? I just got an old readynas 4200 chassis and I'm planning on swapping the MB to a Supermicro X10SL7-F. The drives I am currently using all are 3Tb and higher. Your feedback would really help.

If you're buying the board new, then do yourself a favour and use an X11 equivalent which doesn't have a 32GB ram limitation.