Hi, I purchased this server for a new TrueNAS build not realizing that it is configured as two nodes with node one connected to drives 0-44 and node two connected to drives 45-90.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to reconfigure this so that a single node can see all 90 drives? I’m happy to remove or not turn on the unused node. I don’t really need the redundancy, but do need to be able to access all 90 drives from a single node.
I called Supermicro and they said no, but looking at the parts list of their JBOD version, it seems possible given the backplanes and expanders are the same?
Unfortunately, Supermicro’s site (6049SP-DE1CR90 | SuperStorage | Products | Super Micro Computer, Inc.) seems pretty unhelpful in figuring exactly how things are connected. I’d bet, though, that there’s a single SAS cable from each motherboard going to the relevant set of drives. If that’s the case, it should be straightforward enough to redirect one of them to the other motherboard (or a SAS HBA connected to that motherboard), which would give that node access to all the drives. I’m guessing here, as the manual is 150+ pages and the TOC so far hasn’t pointed me in the right direction, but it seems a reasonable guess.
Hi, thanks. Yes, the manual’s not very helpful and unfortunately, the cables are really tucked in and so I can’t trace them without disassembling the whole drawer, which I hesitate to do in case I break something. The drawer has 6 banks (A through F), and each bank has a backplane that accommodates 15 drives. And there are 6 cables that plug into a single midplane which then connects to the two nodes. So there’s one miniSAS cable for each of the 6 backplanes that connect to the midplane which has 8 miniSAS inputs, labeled 1-8, but only 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 are used. 5 and 6 are left unused.
I think the trick might be to adjust the dip switches on the midplane so that all 6 miniSAS inputs are sent to node 1 vs. splitting them 3 and 3. But alas, there’s no documentation to be found.
If all else fails, you could unplug the cables from motherboard #2, fish them back to the midplane, and then re-route them to motherboard #1. You won’t have anyplace to plug them in, but you should be able to add an HBA that has the right ports.
Thanks. Unfortunately, the slimSAS cables are too short for that and looking at the drive drawer, they cannot be replaced with longer ones because they are not accessible given the boards they are connected to are riveted in.
They also sell a single node version of this server. Does anyone know if it’s possible to convert my dual node server to a single node that can access all 90 drives?
