Zeroth thing - if this should be in r/techsupport or r/HomeServer apologies in advance; I was 50/50 where to go
First more problem context
- This is my main NAS
- Runs Unraid
- SATA HDD as bulk storage and SATA SSDs as cache drives all go through the HBA
- Every reboot is a gamble if all drives will show back up.
- Rebooting again may have the drives show up again, may have others disappear.
- I just reboot until they they all show up.
Second things - Hardware
- Chassis: Supermicro 846
- Backplane: BPN-SAS-846TQ
- Mobo: X11SCM-LN8F (note just the 1 PCI slot)
- CPU: Intel Xeon E-2276G
- HBA: Dell H310 (IT mode) (in said PCI slot) only 1 port is used to the expander
- HBA SAS Expander: HP 468405-002 24-Bay 6GB SAS Expander
- SAS Expander power: PCI-E 1x to 16x Powered USB3.0 GPU Riser Extender Adapter Card
Thirdly... my questions
- The aliexpress via amazon usb power would be my vote for a smoking gun but i just dont see a better way to rig it up at the moment. How would you?
- Could my chain of Dell H310 --> HP SAS expander --> backplane just be poopy?
- Are SAS cables known to be flakey?
- Is it worth upgrading the HBA, expander, or backplane for better
- Reliability?
- Performance? Even for scrubs/parity checking? 99.99999% sure no as my network at the moment is 1G
- Simpler cabling?
- Do i just burn it all down and build a new server? Sometimes there just be gremlins man.
Fourth - The future...
- SATA SSDs as cache drives
- 1 x 2TB NVME as cache
- 1 x 1TB NVME as cache
- soon may either be 2x 4tb sata ssd for mirrored cache (have already and unused) or ill buy another 2tb NVME for mirrored cache
- Would you go with more or faster cache drives ?
u/kingviper - If you're ever curious whats been going on with your old DAS...