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I got a 4 node supermicro 2U unit which has 12 how swapable caddies, 3 for each node.

The problem is that I want to connect at least 4 if not even 6 drives to a single node. The BIOS reports 3*2 SATA slots which makes me think that I should be able to use more than 3 drives with a single node.

The question is how? Is there an expansion card/unit?

Mainboard: https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DRT-HF.cfm spec which states "5 SATA 2.0 ports (3Gb/s), 2 SATA 3.0 ports (6Gb/s) " -- not clear if there an AND or OR between these two, but clearly the case has only 3 drives connected (not even sure how these are assigned)

The case is https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/2u/6027/sys-6027tr-htrf.cfm

I tried to contact supermicro support but got no reply back, i guess they don't bother with individuals buying out of support hardware.

sorin
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3 Answers3

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You can use only 3 of the drive caddies for any of those nodes, they are directly wired and can't be used in another way.

If you need more disks, you need an external disk enclosure (and possibly a controller supporting this).

Sven
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  • I seen an optional part number BPN-ADPX9-6SATA but I am not sure how am I supposed to connect these additional drives. The idea is that I cannot build any RAID that would make sense with only 3 drives and I do also want to avoid using the single PCI-e extension as I want to put a 10GBe card on it later. Clearly the mainboard should support 6 drives, the question is how to wire them.... – sorin Dec 16 '18 at 21:30
  • There is nothing to be found about this backplane on the SM site. My guess is that if this indeed supports 6 drives per node, it is meant for the variant with 6 2.5" HDDs per node. You are clearly trying to use the system for something it was not designed to do. – Sven Dec 16 '18 at 21:58
  • The mainboards do have 6 sata connections on them... i wonder if I can just connect these to an external enclosure with 6 drives. The big dillema is which are the one alteady connected to the middle plane as I do not want to endup connecting two drives on the same port (i suspect 3/6 are also connected to front). Finding an enclosure should not be an issue. – sorin Dec 16 '18 at 22:09
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Hi you can use any PCI that take M.2 ssd and NVMe, there is some now that can take 2 M.2 SSD and 1 NVMe, so you can easily add 3 more drives, you will just need to use the sata connector next to the PCI slot on the motherboard for the M.2 ssd to work

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/pcie-m2-ngff-ssd-adapter-card~PEXM2SAT32N1

Hope this helps

zalouma
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Per the manual:

A Front Panel Add-On Card header is located at JF2 on the motherboard. This header provides onboard SATA support. Plug an add-on card in JF2 to use SATA connections. In addition, two SATA connections (I-SATA 0/1), located next to the Intel PCH chip also provide SATA connections. In addition, three S-SATA connectors (S-SATA0, 2/3) are also located on the motherboard. See the layout below for the locations of onboard SATA connections.

SuperMicro has this part number listed for the add-on card, Backplane BPN-ADPX9-6SATA 2 6-PORT SATA ADAPTER FOR TWIN

Refer to this image in the manual for the location of the ports:

enter image description here

Bert
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