panz
Guru
- Joined
- May 24, 2013
- Messages
- 556
panz, your complaint about expander backplanes is kind of odd. You're basically in trouble with big complex hardware if ANY of it fails. Could be an SAS expander chip, yes, but even avoiding that, if you have a 24 drive chassis, what do you do if you snap off an SAS/SATA connector on the backplane? If you have an HBA with 8 ports, what do you do if that fails on your 12 drive pool? etc.
It is probably wise to give the issue some thought but it probably doesn't warrant totally avoiding a given bit of hardware.
I have "redundant" (= double) hardware for my setup (two M1015, two RES2SV240, etc.). It's not the same about the backplanes. I think I don't need a spare part for them.
I tried to disassemble my backplanes and it is not very difficult to do; so – in the event of a failure (who sold me the hardware told me he hasn't changed one yet...) – I'm confident I'll deal with it.
Not the same story about the expander backplane (same case): it was almost impossible to service without dismantling the entire chassis, it had a lot of components, it reduced the airflow, it was not clear which hard drive each 4-pin connector was going to feed, etc.