Help understanding backplane on a SC933 Chassis

[mamruoc]

Hello, I was gifted a SC933 chassis (without motherboard). I have checked and found that it got a backplane with Single Host Bus Adapter (https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/chassis/3U/SC933.pdf page C-12). What kind of HBA do I need. I have one of these (https://www.ebay.com/itm/153224277440).

The chassis support 15 physical drives and the HP H220 supports 2x4 SATA disks. Does this mean that I kan connect one of the HBA connector on the HP H220 to the backplane of the chassis and then get 15 disks + 4 sata (directly connected to the H220)?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Hey, so there's more info needed to help answer some questions, but here's what I found digging around...

Start with the HBA, the ebay link says the HP H220 has this controller on it:

https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/sas-sata-controllers/sas-2308 - click the product brief link to check out data sheet

Also, supermicro has a data sheet regarding the LSI 2308 - https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/LSI_HostRAID_2308.pdf

I'll assume you've provided the correct information regarding the SC933 backplane you have. You will want to connect both ports of the HBA to the backplane ports A1 and B1, you should be able to use 8 slots of the backplane for SAS or SATA drives.

Look at page C-17 for the type of cables required for HBA to 933EL backplane model, which are SFF 8087 type cables.

 

[mamruoc]

Thanks for replying! I have the SC933EL1 backplane. Please see the attached photos. So what do I have to do to access all the 15 bays? Another hba?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Yea, based on the description of the HBA, you would need two of them to access all the bays.

A couple thoughts

1. Are you planning on getting a system board for the supermicro chassis? or running the HBA's in an external server and connecting to the storage through external cabling? this changes which cabling you're going to need

2. Maybe look for HBA's that can access all the bays. You would need to dig around for something supported by the configuration, software and hardware-wise.