Building a SAS Raid DAS

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
E

emace7

Prominent
May 6, 2017
4
0
510
Hi all,
I have been searching the internet for various tutorials and been learning about raids and SAS expanders. I am trying to build a DAS enclosure that has raid. My question is,
I have my PC, and I have my empty enclosure.. To get everything connected do I just install a SAS card in my pc, and then my raid card and SAS expander in my enclosure? I guess I was unclear about how everything connects. It was confusing that my SAS output is on my SAS expander, but the expander is plugged internally to my raid card. Wanted to make sure I was understanding it all correctly.

Thanks!
 
Solution
M
So the RAID card needs to be installed in the computer where you'll have an OS installed and be configuring the RAID, hence it being in your main computer. In order to put the RAID card in your DAS enclosure you'd need a motherboard, memory, CPU, OS, etc, essentially making your DAS enclosure a full computer. At that point its not a DAS anymore, it would be considered a NAS at best, or really just another computer really.

Tape drives want to be connected to a SAS HBA, not a RAID card. Unless you REALLY REALLY need tape, I wouldn't mess with that at all. Its a pain, and in the residential space cloud backup can be more appealing unless your ISP bandwidth is super low and you have a LOT of data to back up. Its easier to just buy...
Sort by date Sort by votes
M

marko55

Honorable
Nov 29, 2015
800
0
11,660
For starters, to be able to power that box on using the front power button, you can grab a power up control board. I built a 24-bay rackmount DAS chassis and used this one: CA-PTJBOD. Worked like a charm. Just have to find a couple standoff positions that you can screw it down to in that case.

Second, in regards to how you connect your SAS, there's the clean way & the not-so-clean way. In your main machine you can run a SAS RAID card that has an external SAS (SFF-8088) connector or two like a Megaraid 9286-8e. That RAID card connects to you main computer via PCIe.

The clean way: In your DAS enclosure you can put one of these in the open slots: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I0FBNPS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1. That will accept external SAS Cables (SFF-8088 to SFF-8088) from your RAID card. You then uses internal SAS connector cables (SFF-8087 to SFF-8087) to connect to your SAS expander. The SAS expander goes inside your DAS enclosure by the way. Then simply run SAS SFF-8087 to 4xSATA breakout cables to connect your drives/drive bays to your SAS expander.

The not-so-clean way is to cut out the Norco SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 external to internal adapter card in the DAS enclosure. You can grab SFF-8088 to SFF-8087 cables to run from the back of your RAID card in to your DAS enclosure through some open hole on the back. Saves the $$ on the Norco adapter and the extra 1-2 cables.

Note that if you use just one SAS connection from your RAID card to the SAS expander it will provide 2GB/s. If you're using all spinning disks this is plenty of bandwidth and you probably don't need the 2nd cable. If you're gonna be putting a bunch of SSDs in RAID over there I'd connect both. On the SSD note, just make sure you get a RAID card that has the necessary performance to get full speed out of those SSD arrays.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
E

emace7

Prominent
May 6, 2017
4
0
510
Hey thanks a lot for all the info and ideas. This does clarify some things. This seems like a straight forward approach. One thing, is there ever a scenario where the raid card would be able to go into the DAS enclosure? I know I would need to get an PCI adapter that powers the card if I dont use a MOBO or get a motherboard with no CPU to do the same. I originally thought of that approach because on my main PC I do not have enough open PCI slots. And I wanted to use the Norco card on my pc so I can have the option to connect a LTO drive ( unless that has the ability to use the SAS connection on the raid card?). I do realize I propose a more difficult setup, but just wanted to see all my options before committing to one build over the other.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
M

marko55

Honorable
Nov 29, 2015
800
0
11,660
So the RAID card needs to be installed in the computer where you'll have an OS installed and be configuring the RAID, hence it being in your main computer. In order to put the RAID card in your DAS enclosure you'd need a motherboard, memory, CPU, OS, etc, essentially making your DAS enclosure a full computer. At that point its not a DAS anymore, it would be considered a NAS at best, or really just another computer really.

Tape drives want to be connected to a SAS HBA, not a RAID card. Unless you REALLY REALLY need tape, I wouldn't mess with that at all. Its a pain, and in the residential space cloud backup can be more appealing unless your ISP bandwidth is super low and you have a LOT of data to back up. Its easier to just buy something like a 10TB external HDD and back up to that every once in a while.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom