Reddit reviews CABLEDECONN Mini SAS26P SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 1M External Cable Attached SCSI

Okay, here's what you're going to want to learn.

Mini-SAS comes in two versions (internal - 8087 or external - 8088).

If you want to connect drives internally, you get an LSI card with internal (8i, 16i)

If you want to connect drives externally, you get an LSI card with external (8e, 16e)

Say you have two boxes, you need one external LSI card with 8088 and one passthrough 8088-8087 card.

You'll need 8087 cables to SATA (an 8i card will have two ports for 2 cables where each support 4 sata cables)

You'll need 8088 cables to connect the external cards together

Figure out how many SATA hard drives you want to support.

8e - 8 SATA drives per external card.

16e - 16 SATA drives per external card.

Shopping List for 16 External Hard Drives from one computer to another:

External Card ($30): https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-6GB-16-Port-SAS-SATA-HBA-Controller-Card-SAS9201-16e-H3-25379-01G-Grade-A/273461892263?hash=item3fab9954a7:g:CSMAAOSwfkFbm-XI:sc:USPSFirstClass!33175!US!-1

Mini-SAS Passthrough (2 x $30): https://www.amazon.com/CableDeconn-SFF-8088-SFF-8087-Adapter-bracket/dp/B00PRXOQFA

8087 to SATA (4 x $8): https://www.amazon.com/CableCreation-SFF-8087-female-Internal-Splitter/dp/B013JP7YI8/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_147_bs_lp_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AYXPARRHH92MDMM64NJJ

8088 to 8088 (4 x $15): https://www.amazon.com/CableDeconn-SAS26P-SFF-8088-External-Attached/dp/B00S7KTXW6/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1537045400&sr=1-3&keywords=8088+to+8088

Edit: Please don't hesitate to ask questions before spending money, just make us a diagram showing where your disks are and where you want to hook them up.

If you're running Linux software RAID is likely to be more flexible, and with a decent CPU behind it will give a hardware controller a run for it's money in general operations. Go hardware if you want to get the benefit of hardware acceleration for things like RAID6 parity calculations.

> I'm assuming the H200E would be inside the DAS.

No. H200E is a PCIe card that is installed in the server. The MD1200 or other DAS is nothing but a metal chassis, one or more SAS controllers and one or more power supplies. That's it. You'll need a pair of SFF-8088 cables... I bought these ones for H200E to MD1200 connection.

2 of these: http://www.istarusa.com/en/raidage/products.php?model=DAGE416UTL-4MS
Available on Amazon.

You'll also want a couple of these or similar: https://www.newegg.com/lsi00276-sata-sas/p/N82E16816118147

Lastly, some cables to hookup between the two: https://www.amazon.com/CABLEDECONN-SAS26P-SFF-8088-External-Attached/dp/B00S7KTXW6

Drives will be hot-swappable and show up as if they are directly connected.

As far as JBOD's go, that's pretty freaking cheap. Hook them up to whatever the hell you want that has PCIe slots.

I'd also stay away from sata port expander cards (unless there is a quality one out there) and stay on the path of the LSI SAS 2008 controller based cards, i.e. most common HBA cards use it. If you also want to eliminate any unforeseen issues with SAS expander cards then one way would be to can make use of a cheap 4 port external SAS card, like the 9200-16E or 9201-16E. These cards have SFF-8088 for external ports so you'll need 1-2 PCI card brackets and 2-4 cables. This setup will be an extra $57 for 8HDD and it can scale up to 16HDD for $114, but these cables will be hanging out the back. The $114 would be better spent on a bigger or better motherboard, but for now it's another option to consider.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/372102178384
https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-9201-16e-6Gb-s-16-PORT-SATA-SAS-HOST-BUS-ADAPTER-LSI00276-NEW/123631209680?hash=item1cc8fe8cd0:g:lR0AAOSwN5hcNRYq
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GPD9QEQ/
https://www.amazon.com/CABLEDECONN-SAS26P-SFF-8088-External-Attached/dp/B00S7KTXW6/