Need help selecting disk array to use

High-Performance Computing Workstations & Servers
1

hello i am new here on the fourm but have been watching level 1 for a while now and love it. but i have come to an issue, i have a dell t3500 with a xeon x 5660 and 48 gb of ddr 3 ecc 1333, and i am going to use this to replace my current free nas box, but i am looking for a good set up as in i will need a sas raid card that can support hba for zfs. and i need a disk array, i have been looking for a little bit and have found a cheap one on ebay a netapp ds4243 which looks promising but i have no experience with sas controllers or disk arrays, so my questions is more then likely simple for most of you guys here.

  1. is the netapp disk array any good?
  2. what raid card would you recommend to use for it?
  3. how would i go about hooking it up to the dell t3500? i.e how many sas cables would i need and what about the acp could i just use a 2nd nic?

any help would be greatly appreciated and if you need more info, please ask and i will provide as much as i can, thank you very much.

2

I have this exact same one.

Still working this out on my end as well.

I talked to a dell rep and got an HBA card but I still need the right cables before I can use my shelf. Also, I need to buy 12 hard drives to use the first part of the shelf.

The netapp is huge. If you need to use all 24 hard drives you need one with all four PSU's, and 2 controllers in the back, one that chains up to the top, and then from the top to your HBA.

3

O i didnt know you need all 4 psu's i know i saw one with 2 psu's one on each shelf, and 2 controllers on it. But i did find some that have all 4 psu's and 2 controllers. And then for the hba card to shelf is it just one sas cable or is it 2?

4

Do you know power & noise?

5

rather loud when it first boots up, then at idle its not very loud at all.

Power draw is a lot, it has four 500W power supplies I believe.