Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 question

[Psynapsx]

Hi guys,

so I want to build a large FreeNAS storage. I spent several hours reading through all the information I could find on this forum so all that is left is to ask for your opinions/confirmations about my idea.

- I want to use a Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 for this project: product page. It is relatively inexpensive used and I like that it has 45 drives in a 4U form factor with dual power supplies.
- what I learned is that I absolutely should not use this with a raid controller. So I won't. I have a spare Dell PowerEdge R720 that I'm planning to use to run FreeNAS, get a HBA card and connect the Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 to it, leaving the Dell Perc raid controller that's in the R720 out of the picture completely.
- I read that SAS1 does not support drives larger than 2TB. Luckily the Supermicro 847E26-RJBOD1 has SAS2 backplanes. I plan to use 16TB WD Gold sata drives in the Supermicro chassis. Does it support 16TB drives? Saw someone on the forum warned against using SATA drives in a SAS backplane. Will it be fine?

thank you

 

[Ericloewe]

Yes, everything will be fine. Disk size limits are, in practical terms, a relic of the past. LSI SAS1 hardware stands out as something that cut corners and got stuck with stupid artificial limits (they cheaped out and only support 32-bit LBAs instead of all 48 bits), but it's an outlier.

 

[Chris Moore]

Dell PowerEdge R720 that I'm planning to use

Here are a series of videos that have useful information relevant to your plan.

Dell PowerEdge R820 storage upgrade Part 1 | Converting RAID to HBA IT mode

This video is the first in a series of 3 videos where I will show you how you can upgrade the storage subsystem of the Dell PowerEdge R820. And, since the R8...

www.youtube.com

Dell PowerEdge R820 R720 storage upgrade Part 2 | How to upgrade to SAS-3 performance

This video is the second in a series of 3 videos where I will show you how you can upgrade the storage subsystem of the Dell PowerEdge R820. And, since the R...

www.youtube.com

If you use the correct SAS controller in the R720, it will make a fine head to control as many disks as the SAS controller can address. I have a system at work that is running 122 drives.
It also matters how you configure these drives in the pool as that affects performance of the pool. What use will you put this system to?

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. The guy that makes these videos has a lot of great information and he puts it in an easy to understand format:

Comparing HBA IT mode SAS controllers | 2020 Edition

This video is a follow up to my previous video "Comparing HBA IT mode SAS controllers" from 2018. Since then, my store has greatly expanded the selection of ...

www.youtube.com

 

[Psynapsx]

PS. The guy that makes these videos has a lot of great information and he puts it in an easy to understand format:

Comparing HBA IT mode SAS controllers | 2020 Edition

This video is a follow up to my previous video "Comparing HBA IT mode SAS controllers" from 2018. Since then, my store has greatly expanded the selection of ...

www.youtube.com

wow thank you very much for all the recommendations. I will make sure to watch them.
What SAS controller would you recommend?
It's a decent spec. R720 with two 10 core Xeons although memory is only 32GB at the moment because I had to use some of the modules for other projects but I can easily add more if needed for FreeNAS.

I will use this system as an IPFS storage for the Filecoin project. It does not require great performance. Stability and data integrity on the other hand is very important.

 

[Psynapsx]

What SAS controller would you recommend?

what I should have asked instead is probably 'would you recommend buying an HBA controller instead of flashing the Dell H710p mini that I have in my R720?'

 

[Spearfoot]

what I should have asked instead is probably 'would you recommend buying an HBA controller instead of flashing the Dell H710p mini that I have in my R720?'

See if @fohdeesha's guide applies to your hardware:

Introduction - Fohdeesha Docs

fohdeesha.com