Need help with makeshift external DAS

Hardware HDD's & SSD's
1

So a while ago I put together a box full of disks that would be connected to a SAS controller in the server via SFF 8088 cables. I kind of forgot about it for a while but recently went to test it and it doesn’t work.

I’m trying to figure out where the problem lies, the disks power up and all that and I’m fairly the sure SAS controller is working as it’s detected when posting and can be seen when running lspci etc. But when I turn the disks on I get no indication that they’re detected or connected.

My guess is that the cables are too long, I have 2m Sff 8088 cable going from the server to the enclosure, then some cheap and nasty sff 8088 to sff8087 adapters and then 50cm sff 8087 to sata cables which connect to the disks.

But before I go and spend $100 on new cables I’d like some alternative suggestions on what I can try. Tomorrow I’m going to take the sas controller out of the server and put it in a different system so I can play around with it without having to disrupt the server.

2

Do you have any pictures? It might help if we can see it.

3

Managed to get it working, turns out the controller just needed a firmware update. I haven’t tested the performance so the cables could still be too long but the disks are detected. At some point I’ll clean it up and start setting up the storage, sooner rather than later as I’m pretty low on storage.

Pics anyway:

3 Likes
4

Looks like fun.

Love the situation with the power button

1 Like
5

I couldn’t find a blank IO shield, so duct tape to the rescue.

I set it up as a big zfs pool using striped mirrors so I could move some data around and the speed seemed good. But I still haven’t made any room for it so it’s still sitting on the floor until I run out if space and need to actually use it.