TrueNAS Core and LSI 9207-4i4e Compatible 4/8 bay SAS External Enclosure?

[johntdavis]

Hello,

I’ve got TrueNAS Core running on a repurposed Dell Optiplex 5040 SFF with an LSI 9207-4i4e in it. The 4 internal channels are connected to 4 enterprise SATA SSDs with a breakout cable and work great (so far).

The external connector is an SFF-8088. I’m looking for a 4 or 8 bay hotswap JBOD that I can connect to it. (I know I can’t use more than 4 bays without an expander, but in my research so far, there’s not a huge price difference between the 4 and 8 bay models I’ve found, so it’s conceivable it might be cheaper to get the 4 bay).

I know the best solution would be to rebuild the whole thing in a case that actually fits it, but my budget is about $300 or less, so I can’t really do that right now.
Eventually, I want to move the whole thing into an HL15, but that’s going to be at least a year from now.

The JBOD will sit on my desk, about 3 feet away (it’s a big desk). I know the drives will make noise, but I’m hoping for something with reasonable fans.

I tried a QNAP DL-400S. TrueNAS sees the drives connected to it, but throws all sorts of SCSI errors when doing anything as demanding as creating a pool.

I’ve done some research and this is apparently a known issue as the QNAP enclosure can’t keep up with the commands issued by the LSI card, and the solution is to either disable NCQ or get a different enclosure, and the card doesn’t let you disable NCQ on a per-disk level.

I’m looking at this, which looks like a whitebox DIY solution: 4 bay 6G Trayless SAS / SATA External Enclosure - J0406T. PC PitStop Data Storage Solutions - SAS Enclosures, DAS, NAS, iSCSI & FC SAN

I’ve also got 2U free in my rack, and am open to building/buying a reasonably quiet 2U JBOD.

Are there any other alternatives I should be looking at? My current two-bay NAS has a drive that threw a bad blocks error at me on one of the drives and failed a SMART test and then decided it was fine on reboot, so I’d like to expedite this purchase if I can.

[235SAS]

A bit late to the thread but I was in a vaguely similar position as you. I ended up purchasing some emc ktn-stl3’s ( there is a great thread about these on servethehome EMC KTN-STL3 15 bay chassis | ServeTheHome Forums
) I was able to buy the chassis for ~$25 each, and the caddies (which are required because of their interposer) for cheap ( I don’t remember the final average price). I would try looking for either it or a cheap Dell PowerVault. Honestly depending on your area you would be suprised what you can get for ~$100 total.

I also am pursuing 3D printing my own cages, I don’t know if that is possible for you, but you would still need to deal with powering the drives in that case (you wouldn’t need a SAS expander like I do) and your options there might also be limited depending on budget and the used market.