DL180 Gen6 with a jumble of HDs, possible or not bother?

weird_dave

weird_dave

weird_dave

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I have a heap of sata drives which are begging to go into a box. I really don't want to spread them around my current PCS, so am looking at getting a refubished HP ProLiant DL180 G6 with no drives.
The specs say it comes with a HP Smart Array P410 256MB BBWC, it's not obvious to me if this will allow me to access all the drives.
Some of the drives are the same size, would it be possible to have different raid groups as well as some single drives? I simply failed to google this information :(
 
Essentially yes, a NAS is what I'm after. a refurbished DL180 can be had for £100 you see, and I have drives sat here not being used. It doesn't need to be a bullet-proof system.
The drives come in a few size-flavours, 2TB, 1TB, 160GB (I had previously raided 6 of those for a pretty fast 960GB array :) )
I won't actually need huge speed for this as I'm only on Gbit Ethernet anyway.

Noise isn't a problem, I'll put it in the dining room :D

The other option is to buy a DS380 case, which unfortunatly isn't available on OC:
https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=452
and populate it with some bits. I have a a game server which I can rob for parts, but I would have to use windows 7 for compatibility reasons (so it would still be the game server as well, keeping the OS that's on the SSD).
I'm a bit green on SAS/JBOD controllers though...

Edit: Damn, the mobo won't fit that case, so that'd be another cost....
 
Well, in that case I might have to have a rethink. Data loss isn't a great concern, just an irritation. power consumption isn't that much either compared to all the other stuff running :)
 
I have a license for server 2016 which isn't in use, so I don't have to use freenas. One of the attractions of using some sort of plugin card was to increase the number of sata drives I can connect. The OS drive doesn't necessarily have to go via the card either, that could have a direct connection as I won't be swapping it about, then let the OS deal with the card connected drives if necessary/appropriate. I also want something with a backplane, I'm sick of fiddling about with sata data and power cables every time I want to change something.
 
Well, the larger drives are currently in my PCs, the plan was to move them out and have extra physical space available to add more to the box as required. The 160GB drives would just have been for fun :D (they haven't had much use, few hundred hours each and were free!)
Buying a new NAS/DAS seems quite expensive for what they are, if you consider the cost per bay to access a drive, it's insane. So for the moment, I guess I'll just wait for another solution to present itself....
Which might be this case:
https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=709&area=en
It's different to the previous case I posted a link to, this will take the ATX motherboard I have in mind.
I guess all I'd need is a 4 port sata card to go with it?
 
Why is everyone so hung up on those small drives? They aren't relevant. FYI, £70 a year to run all 8 24/7 at max power usage (which they won't be), not that I was actually planning to, they were just for fun because I have them sat here.
All I want is a cheap box I can add drives to, the DL180 seemed like a reasonable choice, but I do concede there are issues with it.
Still waiting for a suggestion that doesn't cost £30 a bay.... (or more, lots more....)
No comments on the silverstone case idea so far either :(
 
I have a rack which is partly why I don't mind having a rack case... The downsides I can see are potentially noise, the age of the kit (in case it dies as opposed to power consumption), getting the SAS card to play nice (probably top of the list). Upsides are cost (£100 + £3 for each caddy is what I'm looking at), it's rack mountable (for me that's a plus!), number of bays (12 should be enough!)

I'm weighing this against the Silverstone case, which can be had for £100 new. 8 bays plus a few internal (I'd use that area for the OS drive). The motherboard I have to put in it only has 6 sata ports, one of which would be for the OS, so I am considering a 4 port sata card. I'm a little unsure which card to go for though, last time I bought anything similar was an I-will raid card (IDE!)
I have seen people enquire about new sata backplanes for the case because they've broken them, I'm not sure if that's due to ham-fistedness or they are prone to falling apart.
Price and being new are major upsides. Downsides are that the motherboard will have to come out of the rack case it's in, leaving more space in the rack :( It's also a bit of an upside since it's not yet another PC in the house...

I took a look at the ML350 it seems to have the came controller as the DL180. I couldn't find it as cheap either :(

So, I guess what I need to ask is, would you (or anyone, tho clearly people do) go for the Silverstone case and a sata card (and which one?)?
 
Yeah, was best man at a wedding yesterday, so I wasn't exactly on top form for the last two days.... I do apologise.

OK, working backwards...

The SC846 would be great, I think the 2u is the SC826, I'm struggling a bit on prices. I'm not sure if I'd need a SAS controller to use it or if the backplane gives sata access.

Which leads neatly to the H310 HBA, I could only find these on a 2nd hand site 'new' for around £30, seems pretty reasonable, 4 port sata cards seem to be a similar price.
I'm still not familiar with SAS, having never used such devices, should the need arise, can I simply use SFF-8087 to 4xSata adaptor cables with the H310? (I have assumed yes further down the post...)

Up next is the "2630L/x99 board/8GB/Antec 900/H310 HBA, 3 x 4in3 backplanes" build.
The motherboard/CPU/RAM I already have available, so this works out cheap so far. The antec 900 seems to be about the same price as the silverstone case which has a backplane already in it. I did look for the 4 in 3 backplanes, I was considering adding those to the current PCs and spreading the drives around as a cheap option, but the best I could find was about £50 each, 2 of those and I figured the silverstone would be easier, though potentially more cabling as the connections aren't sas, but at least I'd only have to cable it once and forget about it.

So as it stands, I think the silverstone case with a H310 HBA is the way forward since the only extra power consumption is the H310 and any new drives I add. With 8087-4xSata cables the parts cost is about £140 all new parts (excluding the bits I already have, obviously).
 
OK, I think I'm sold on the H310, that and the cables are at the top of my list.
I had another look for used 4in3's with backplanes but struggled to find much. This could have made the solution even cheaper as I just realised that I have a spare case with 6 5.25" bays.
I'll keep an eye out, but if nothing comes up I think I'll go for the Silverstone case. The advantage with new is all the screws will be there and there shouldn't be any awkward dents/bends in the metalwork... (If I didn't have to do anything I wouldn't be bothered, hence why the DL180 originally).
 
Cor! I've not had to do a tape mod since the Slocket days :D
I'll be running Win 7 for compatibility with the stuff I will be running on it (re-using parts from an existing rig so no need to install fresh OS), so IT mode sounds sensible. I'll be ordering the H310 and cables tonight and will have a play with it in the current rig before ripping it apart for the new build :)
 
Yeah, this is why I want to get it and have a play first, raid isn't a requirement for this, I don't even need hot-swap, I can and will switch off before swapping any drives (but I have grown to hate dealing with sata cables!)
These are the cables I'm looking at: (to avoid putting links)
Mini SAS 36P SFF-8087 to 4 SATA 7 Pin Molex Pin out 2 Ly
 
For stuff that needs backing up properly, I could almost get away with the free 15GB from google. A redundancy combo of phone/USB sticks/work PC/work tape backup keeps me fairly good on that front though :)
I couldn't live on in though, only a 200Mbit connection, it's also not cheap:
https://one.google.com/storage
click on more options, ouch!
Card ordered, could take a few weeks to arrive.... Which gives me time to find cages for a case or a shiny new case with backplanes built in :)

Edit:
OK, I found the unlimited storage:
https://gsuite.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/pricing.html
 
That's actually lower than I was expecting for the R710. I'll get the specs tomorrow, possibly the box as well. I might be able to ditch the box I'm using to run game servers if the specs are good enough (FX8300 @3.8)
 
Do I grab just the R710 or take the 3x R310's as well :D
I'll leave the poweredge 2900 though, it's a beast of a box.
I do acknowledge that the R710 isn't the best solution, it's probably better to just buy the Silverstone case and re-use a motherboard that's already running, the power saving of not running another PC will pay for itself in a year, unless I can migrate other stuff to it and not just use it for storage.
 
I'm still waiting on the specs, Mr IT guy at work is busy today so I may have to wait a bit, the HBA card is a while away yet so not a problem. The only PC I would be looking to remove would be the game server, though the power consumption is pretty low as not all the cores get used and I've lowered the core V as well. (not actually measured the power, but temps are low with the stock cooler, so there isn't a lot of heat/power).
OS choice is going to be the next decision, but that kinda depends on the specs, if it does become the game server then Win7 may have to win for ease of use. I've never been that struck on VMs, always felt sluggish, I do use one for some FPGA work (Xilinx solution to fixing their s/w for Win10 is to use a linux VM!)
 
Thought I'd update....
The SAS HBA card has turned up, but not the cables yet so I've not had a chance to play with it yet.
Meanwhile, corporate got involved and it's all got a bit long-winded to be able to procure a free R710, so I've relieved Mr IT guy of the hassle and gone for the Silverstone case with 8x3.5" backplane. I've also gone for some 4x2.5" in 1 5.25 as I am expecting an influx of those for free (without the corporate procedures getting in the way!), which means the SSD OS drives on my PCs will also not require direct sata connections, yay! :D
Total cost is nearing £200, but I've got 16 bays for that, I shouldn't run out any time soon :)
 
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