Teach me about SAS Backplanes

[frowertr]

Is this the case? Judging from the wording in your first post this sounds like the exact case.
http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Server-Chassis-Rackmount-Metal/dp/B00N9CXGSO

If so, then you have a couple options. The backplane in that case has 12 individual SAS/SATA ports according to the picture. If you want JBOD, then you could use a 4 port internal SFF-8087 HBA. You would then need three SFF-8087 to SATA breakout cables: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097

That would give you 12 drives all with dedicated SATA/SAS links all connected back to the HBA.

If you wanted hardware RAID then you would sub a RAID controller for the HBA.

You could also connect each drive bay to a physical SATA port in your motherboard. You might find some server motherboards with that many SATA ports. I know I've seen up to 10 physical SATA ports in several. You could also use a motherboard that has mini-SAS (SFF-8087) ports and then use the above breakout cables.

There are multiple ways to do it. The hypervisor will be the factor in determining if you can use software raid or if you need a real RAID controller card. If you are virtualizing, I think it makes more sense to run hardware RAID and then run your hypervisor on top of that. It is just easier to maintain and configure. This coming from a big proponent of Mdadm.

 

[Noo]

Simple answer is: SATA hard drive will work with both, SAS hard drive will only work with a SAS card/controller. I'm the voice of reason and I'm saying that you're overdoing it. A simple and cheap atx mid tower that hold 8 drives is all that you're going to use (nzxt source 210/220). It also have 2 5.25 bays that you can buy adapters to add 2-3 more hard drives if you ever need it. Seriously, at $150 each x 8 thats $1200 in hard drives alone. Don't forget raid card,cables, etc. if you're asking about SATA and SAS compatibility, I don't think it's worth your while to buy a case with 12 drives that are hot swappable and using an OP Xeon cup for a file server. Oh and the people who say that you'll be exceeding the sata3 bandwidth limit, are you ready to buy 10gigabit networking equipments? The router and nic cards cost more than your life 😀 Unless you plan on doing nothing but copy a file from one pool to another on the same computer over and over. Get ready to buy 10gigabit networking equipments.

 

[Noo]

Here's my Thinkserver, then I realized I wasted money when I would be better off building a smaller NAS (center) with 6 3tb hdd. Yes that little case in the center hold 6 3.5 hdd and an ssd. My htpc is on the right.

 

[rchunter]

It all depends on the person and how much data they have to store. A 12 bay server chassis could be way overboard for some people but for others not enough. Should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Only OP will know what he needs. For me 24 bay is about right. In fact i'm shopping for another one right now for a backup server. This time i'd like to go with a supermicro chassis, probably 846A-1200w.

 

[pcm81]

Thank you all for the input. I have decided to go with the SAS case, b/c it provides easy hot swap capability for the hard drives. I am currently using 5x 3.5" bay adapters in my main PC and since I needed a case for the VM server I am building, I figured might as well go for a server case. I was not sure if the SAS back plane will introduce any additional complications for me, but it sounds like it will not.

Some may say that I am overdoing it, but I like to do things right the first time.