Adding lots of SATA ports

[heymrdj]

I need an addon card, and I have a 1x and 16x slot. So I need a sata card of any variety (since supposedly all types will work in the x16 slot), that will give me either 4 mini-SAS SFF-8087 connectors, or 16 SATA II connectors. This is for a massive WHS server, therefore RAID of any sort is unnecessary. Battery Backup on the card is unnecessary as well. If the price is fair, overkill isn't bad either, with a max of 24 SATA II connectors, or 6 mini-SAS SFF-8087. Hope someone knows something, I'm tired of seeing 1,400$ RAID cards .

 

[jkresh]

for that many drives I think you will be stuck with either getting a couple of cheap cards which have maybe 8 ports, or going with the cheapest raid card and just not using the raid functionality. Where are you storing all the drives (ie if you cant fit 16 or 24 drives in your case, there are some 6-8 drive external boxes which just need 1 esata port to work).

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: jkresh
for that many drives I think you will be stuck with either getting a couple of cheap cards which have maybe 8 ports, or going with the cheapest raid card and just not using the raid functionality. Where are you storing all the drives (ie if you cant fit 16 or 24 drives in your case, there are some 6-8 drive external boxes which just need 1 esata port to work).

I was planning on a Norco 4220 20 hot swap bay enclosure to replace my current micro ATX chassis that my WHS server sits in (only has 3 HD bays, which I've out grown), plus the micro ATX board only has 4 SATA ports on it. Still, with this being just WHS, and HD thoroughput is not really a necessity (HD's only see 1GBit network at the fastest, normally it's only Wireless G, maybe soon to be N, and that's only 3 clients), so these 8 drive esata boxes interest me. Got some links?

 

[jkresh]

this is only a 4bay one but I think there are 8 bay versions (maybe a different manufacturer) http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817198028 the Norco is a lot cheaper but this might make sense (15 bay one that needs 3 esata ports http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16816215140), might not save much over a raid card but it is an option

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: jkresh
this is only a 4bay one but I think there are 8 bay versions (maybe a different manufacturer) http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817198028 the Norco is a lot cheaper but this might make sense (15 bay one that needs 3 esata ports http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16816215140), might not save much over a raid card but it is an option

I do like that 4 bay option, and seeing that we have esata ports on our server if we decide not to go all out right now, that 4 bay may be the option we're looking for to get another 8TB (unformatted) space available to WHS. Thank you very much for this. Still looking for cards!

 

[heymrdj]

This port multiplier technology interests me: http://www.addonics.com/produc...controller/ad5sapm.asp

Techincally with 4 of those cards, and the 4 SATA ports on my system, I should be able to run 20 SATA drives. But at 69$ a piece, I would still be looking at 500$ for cards, plus having to run 20+4 SATA cables within the machine, whereas with the mini-SAS SFF 8087 port, I can run just 5 high denisity cables between my card and backplanes, and let the backplanes handle the breakout, thus making for a clean and cool server. 24 SATA cables I imagine would cost me an extra 90$ on top of the 500, and when I can get a 16 port card for about 700 new, I'd rather use that. OHHH the decisions.


EDIT: BTW, on anyone know if the SATA chipset used by the BIOSTAR TForce T-7025-M2 supports port multipliers?

 

[ZetaEpyon]

The best that I know of that fits this in one slot is the Areca ARC-1300ix-16.
http://www.areca.us/support/photo/ARC-1300ix-16.jpg

It runs about $400 iirc, but would (combined with motherboard sata ports) easily fill out a Norco 20-bay case.

Edit:
Supermicro also has a pair of cards that would possibly work:
AOC-SAT2-MV8 - PCI-X 64-bit, 8 SATA ports
AOC-SASLP-MV8 - PCI-E x4, 2 SFF-8087

Buying one of each of these would probably be about one-half to two-thirds the cost of the Areca, but it's obviously a less elegant solution.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: ZetaEpyon
The best that I know of that fits this in one slot is the Areca ARC-1300ix-16.
http://www.areca.us/support/photo/ARC-1300ix-16.jpg

It runs about $400 iirc, but would (combined with motherboard sata ports) easily fill out a Norco 20-bay case.

Edit:
Supermicro also has a pair of cards that would possibly work:
AOC-SAT2-MV8 - PCI-X 64-bit, 8 SATA ports
AOC-SASLP-MV8 - PCI-E x4, 2 SFF-8087

Buying one of each of these would probably be about one-half to two-thirds the cost of the Areca, but it's obviously a less elegant solution.

Thanks for the option, but I don't have a PCI-X slot on the board, only really one card space by the time this goes in there, so the PCI-E 16x slot would be the best option.

Does anyone have any views of HighPoint controller cards? I'm looking at their RR3540 (16 port via 4 SFF-8087 ports), and their RR3560 (24 port via 6 SFF-8087 ports). Thanks!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816115052

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816115067

 

[ZetaEpyon]

For what it's worth, the PCI-X card will work in a normal PCI slot, just obviously not at full bandwidth, which is unlikely to matter a whole lot in WHS, which will only be accessing one spindle at a time.

 

[jkresh]

I have a highpoint (4320), performance is decent and since you are not using them as raid I think it would be fine, my next raid card would not be with them (their support is a little iffy, and since they don't due automatic verification (need to set one up) when 1 drive failed I lost my raid 5 (was able to recover most of the data but it should not have happened)). I suspect the issue invold the drive having write errors before it actually failed and this caused coruption (array ran fine with 1 drive removed but once I tried to add another drive and rebuild, it was gone).

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Originally posted by: heymrdj
Thanks for the option, but I don't have a PCI-X slot on the board, only really one card space by the time this goes in there, so the PCI-E 16x slot would be the best option.

Does anyone have any views of HighPoint controller cards? I'm looking at their RR3540 (16 port via 4 SFF-8087 ports), and their RR3560 (24 port via 6 SFF-8087 ports). Thanks!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816115052

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16816115067

Also, since you aren't going to be using RAID, and both of the HighPoint cards cost a lot more than the Areca, you'd be paying considerably more for something you're not using. Other than that, they seem fine.

 

[heymrdj]

I really don't think our server can hold two cards at once, because of the massive cooler on both the NB and the processor, but I can see if two seperate cards would fit. The cost of the highpoint cards are cheaper, at about 750$ for the RR3560, vs about 1,150$ for the ARC-1280ML (Areca 24 port). That's why I ask if it's worth it.

And thanks for the clarification on PCI-X vs. PCI! I do have a regular PCI slot open.

 

[ZetaEpyon]

That's why I mentioned the Areca ARC-1300ix-16, which is not a RAID card, first.

~$400 for a single PCI-E x4 card with 4x internal SFF-8087 mini-SAS ports (16 sata devices). Twice as much as the two Supermicro cards, but half as much as RAID cards with as many ports.

 

[heymrdj]

I don't know why it didn't sink in Zeta. That ARC-1300 is absolutely perfect. If I want I can even route the cables for the two external SFF-8088 ports back into the case for two more 8087 ports via a conversion cable, or save them for 8 esata ports to link to even more storage systems. Cookies man! cookies!

 

[RebateMonger]

Link to ARC-1300 product line. The previous link doesn't seem to work.

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Link to ARC-1300 product line. The previous link doesn't seem to work.

Thanks for the link. I found a bracket perfect for converting those two ports to internal as well. http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_..._adapters/AD8788-1.asp

I'll probably leave at least one external to act as e-sata, or as a link to a second DAS in the future.

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_..._adapters/AD8788-2.asp

 

[RebateMonger]

That Areca controller does look like a decent solution for a WHS server with tons of drives. There are several folks across the world who have put together large (20 Terabyte plus) WHS servers and written about it. They've probably included lists of their hardware in their discussions.