Question Turning an ATX case into a SAS enclosure

[Furi0usGe0rge]

I'm new to the world of sas enclosures/expanders, but I'm looking for a way to add a lot more storage to a server, and I wonder if I need to buy a SAS enclosure, or if I can just repurpose these 12 hotswap bay, 2U chassis I have, and basically make my own enclosure. Since I'd like this to scale, I don't want to simply use one cable for every 4 drives. That means I need the hardware an off-the-shelf SAS enclosure has that "combines" the drives into one SAS cable.

The problem I'm running into is that I'm not quite sure how to shop for this. The parts I find that I believe do what I want are often just called "SAS controllers" or "SAS expanders", which means I have to sort through results that are 95%+ pci-e raid cards and hbas. This is the best option I've found so far, and it's pretty neat how it can be mounted in the IO shield slot. The only disadvantage is that I was hoping to keep a motherboard in the enclosure for use as a cold-spare.

This Intel product also looks to do what I need, but it also looks like it's designed for proprietary intel enclosures.

(I assume I would just rig the power button in the repurposed ATX case to start the PSU, which will power the backplane, the "controller", and whatever else I may want to put in there.)

Lastly, I'll need a card in the case with the motherboard, which already has 24 disks of its own. I like this product by Adaptec for that. It says it supports 36 ports over its 9 connectors, but the documentation says it only supports 24 attached disks, so I'm surmising that 12 lanes/ports are reserved for attaching SAS enclosures which would output over an external SAS cable, via a controller/expander device, as I was mentioning earlier.

My question is two part: 1) am I getting this right, and 2) could someone recommend controllers/expanders for me, especially for the SAS enclosure side that can be mounted in a PCI bay (even if there is no motherboard below it).

Thanks.

 

[lvt]

For Chia mining?

 

[Furi0usGe0rge]

For Chia mining?

Theoretically, I suppose.

UPDATE: I replaced an 8 bay supermicro 2u hotswap chassis with a 12 bay version of the same, and when I was looking at the backplane I saw only two sff-8087 connectors where I was expecting to see three (cuz they usually connect 4 drives per cable). I located the part number and checked the manual, and as luck would have it, the backplane is itself an "extender controller". One sff-8087 port aggregates all 12 drives, the other is for a "cascading" setup, where it can take the output of another similar "extender controller", up to 256 drives. Long story short, the case I have already comes with a backplane that solves 90% of the problem in OP.

All I have to do now is rig a way to power on the backplane from the other chassis. I could use the motherboard that's in there (with no CPU/RAM to save energy; I just need it to power on, not POST). Otoh, if I can rig a 24-pin PSU coupler to the cases, it would all work with one button, I'd get (more) redundancy, and I could get more power to the main case, which needs it, but that's another story.

UPDATE II: For now, I'm going to just short the appropriate pins on the 24 pin connector to leave one PSU in a permanently on state, and just the power cord to turn it off, which wont be too often anyway.

 

[lvt]

UPDATE II: For now, I'm going to just short the appropriate pins on the 24 pin connector to leave one PSU in a permanently on state, and just the power cord to turn it off, which wont be too often anyway.

Maybe you should use a proper switch for the second PSU

https://www.amazon.com/CRJ-24-Pin-Switch-Jumper-Sleeved/dp/B01MSY4966

 

[Furi0usGe0rge]

Thanks for the reply but, meh, I'd couple the 24 pin connectors between both cases first. The case is 2U and has 12 hotswap bays. The only way to bring that thing out is via the pci slots.

Too bad the redundant psus on this case don't have that toggle switch on the back, but I could use a small surge protector.