iSCSI / NAS storage server using PM and Multilane Controller

Have you looked into doing this DAS with SAS expansion? If you had a x8 (or even x4) PCIe slot you could use, then SAS expansion is a possibility.

I like Adaptec or LSI controllers and Supermicro expansion boxes.

Here is the 16 bay 3U supermicro.

http://www.supermicro.com/products [...] 1-R800.cfm

Internal cable to connect to the Expander backplane

http://www.supermicro.com/a_images [...] -0167L.jpg

External cable from the host card to the JBOD

http://www.supermicro.com/a_images [...] -0166L.jpg

Power control card to turn the JBOD on and off

http://www.supermicro.com/products [...] /index.cfm (at the bottom)

Chenbro makes an expander that can be used with any JBOD box. So use whatever SAS card you like with at least 1 external port and then install this in your addonics box. See if it would work for you.

http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesi [...] os=21&pl=0


Edit
I just noticed that the Addonics case does not have any expansion card slots. There are other rack mount cases that have the 9 - 5.25 bay slots though if that is the requirement.

Where you say "a single cable of the correct type would connect to a card in the storage case, SFF-8088 Mini SAS, on each side."

Its not really a card, it more of a cable that (normally) mounts in an expansion slot and accepts the external cable you listed and routs that to the expander. But you yes have the general idea. The expander can be part of the backplane as in the Supermicro solution or an independant device that would connect to a discrete solution as you are looking for and you listed the correct cables.

It is also possible to expand to other JBOD boxes from the first expander with most expansion solutions. This makes it possible to create some really large volumes. I just quoted a customer a 60TB solution for example.


Do you have the drives yet? If not I would encourage you to go with SAS drives for this solution. Not the expensive 10k or 15k ones but the Seagate es.2 series of SAS drives that are 7200 RPM and are priced inline with the SATA ES.2 drives. They come in 750GB and 1TB sizes and there may be others. If you need to use SATA drives that is OK, you just may be limited in the future with cascading if that were ever a need.

One other thing, the card you list as an example only does hostraid 0,1,10 so if you need RAID 5, 6 or 50, 60 you may want to look for another controller. Plus as much as I like Adaptec because the new 5 series and 2 series controllers are extrememly fast they do tend to run hot and I would not use them in a mini itx solution. You might want to look into this card (the 9690SA-4I4E version)

http://www.3ware.com/products/sas-9690sa.asp

Hope this helps