Question 1

From the supermicro website I see that there is a double LSI raid controller card included, but is motherboard also included or is this bought seperatly?

Accepted Answer

NO controllers / HBAs are included. There is NO internal motherboard in this unit. It is JBOD-only. You will need your own server / PC and you will need to purchase your own RAID HBA (LSI, Adaptec, Areca, etc) and SFF-8088 cables (you'll need two cables).

Question 2

From the SuperMicro manual it seems there may be options where it comes with (SAS2-846EL1 or SAS2-846EL2) and (SAS2-847EL1 or SAS2-847EL2) backplanes. The EL2 versions of the backplanes are dual port and support cascading, failover, multipath, etc.  Can you verify if this unit includes the EL1 or EL2 version of the backplanes?

Accepted Answer

I purchased the EL2 and can confirm that the front and rear backplanes are completely separate.  The cables that come with the unit need to be connected internally according to your needs.  The instructions detail many of the possible configurations.  It is completely possible to cascade to multiple units, and also cascade the backplanes together.  There are 4 connections at the rear giving flexibility.

Failover is more of a function of the OS and configuration of the drives.  In my configuration I kept the two backplanes separate and use Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces to mirror drives across the two backplanes.  The specific reason is because of the SATA drives I am using.  If I used only SAS drives I could have used the multipathing and kept the two backplanes connected.

Overall I have had no problems with this unit and will probably purchase more in the future, with SAS drives.

Questions & Answers