Newbie cablesquestion

[Sirant]

Hi

I have recently started to build my own nas4free homeserver, although I have not all that experience I am willing to learn

So, I have bought a case from x-case: http://www.xcase.co.uk/x-case-home-serv ... rver24.htm
And the M1015 Controller card (Which can controll eight HDD right?)

I am so far thinking of using eight HDD and then expand later when/if I get the need. However, I need some guidance in what types of cables I need from the controller card and the HDD bays.

the specs from the case says: Six internal SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors support up to twenty-four 3.5" or 2.5" SATA (II or III) or SAS 6G hard drives;

I tried to take a picture of it:




So I'm guessing I need to cables for running eight HDD - Maybe something like this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-SAS-36-Pin ... 33727df7c1

and then something for the power connections from the psu?

Thanks for all help, sorry for the bad english.

[Lee Sharp]

That is a Norco case, or something similar. http://www.norcotek.com/item_detail.php ... o=RPC-4224
For your information, those power connections on each board are redundant, so you only need to hook up one on each board if you only have one power supply...

Anyway, you need a reverse breakout cable to connect to standard SATA ports. http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=215 or http://www.directron.com/csff80874s.html

If you have a RAID card that supports IT mode (Like the m1015 after flashing to an LSI SAS2008) then you can use a standard SFF cable like you saw on eBay, or here. http://www.directron.com/csff8087d.html

[Sirant]

Cool, thanks for replay.

I've got the M1015, but I havent flashed it, or started to figure out how I do that. So I could actually get two cables like this: http://www.ipcdirect.net/servlet/Detail?no=215 ? My motherboard only got 7 sata connections, so can I then use 7 HDD or do you have to connect all SATA connectors in that cable? In that case I only could use 4 HDD.

I think I got the same issue with the M1015 card as in this thread, viewtopic.php?f=59&t=4719 - I haven't done anything other than putting the card in a PCIx16 slot, but my NAS won't boot either. I'm going to try putting it in another slot, and see if I could figure out how to flash it - but If I order the cables you mentioned I could start using the NAS eventough the controller card isn't working yet.

And the power connection, I-ve got this PSU : http://www.xcase.co.uk/product-p/psu-storm-700.htm

I'm guessing I need some sort of adapter so It fits for the connector?

Like this maybe?=
http://www.directron.com/cbladpsamo.html

[b0ssman]

since you got a rackmount case ipmi would prob be usefull for you.

and read this
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-yo ... ons.12276/

and no you dont need to connect all 4 but you will have to figure out which one on the backplane is not working.

if you are going to use all the 24 bays i suggest to invest in 2 more m1015.

[Sirant]

Thanks,

So basically I can use it for 7 disc, and when I am getting short on free storagespace I could use my controller card, and then again another controller card If I need more HDD?
That way I end up with a total 23 disc, which I figure is more than sufficent for home use (Mainly storage for my blu-rays, for streaming in my home theatre and back up of pictures etc),

The link you sendt was good, too bad I didn't read it before I bought all the different HW.

the IPMI seems like something useful I could have use for later. Now I have a monitor and keyboard connected at the NAS in all times, but guessing that wont be neccesaary when it is "up&running".

Could I use the power adaptor do you think?

[Lee Sharp]

I do not use, or care about ipmi... Things have to go very wrong before ssh fails.

Yes, the adapter may be needed if there are no old style connectors.

As for SATA cards, this is a challenge. A lot of people have done well with a m1015 after flashing to an LSI SAS2008. And a lot of people have had issues. For example, sleep on the drives is still not quite right...

There are other SATA cards that can be had cheaply, but with a lot of cards you can end up with IRQ and slot issues.

You may also want to look at the Backblaze hardware specs. I have heard that some people have installed nas4free on a Backblaze. It uses a combination of 4 port cards and port replicators. http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/02/20/18 ... e-pod-3-0/

[Onichan]

Your setup is about what I have. One issue I had was the SAS cables I initially bought were too short so make sure you get them long enough. Also I highly recommend flashing the M1015 to IT mode. I came across an issue when trying to do that with the fact newer motherboards have the UEFI BIOS which required a .efi file to go to command prompt with a different flashing exe. I uploaded all the files I used with newer M1015 flash and a basic readme on a different post viewtopic.php?f=59&t=4200&p=22644&hilit=m1015#p22644.