A couple of simple questions.

[schoondoggy]

The Gen8 MS does not have an eSATA port.

There are 5 ports that can be controlled by the B120i, the miniSAS port(4 SATA) and the ODD SATA port.

If you have used the PCIe slot, then you are limited to USB external storage.

If you still have your Gen7 you could set it up as a iSCSI target running FreeNAS and use it for storage.

 

At the meetup my Gen8 MS was configured as:

4 x 4TB in the swappable bays connected to a P222

4 x 2TB in a Sans Digital external SAS enclosure connected to the P222

4 x 1TB on the SDM connected to the B120i

1 x 256GB SSD on the ODD SATA port

1 x BlueRay DVD on the internal USB port

[LoneWolf]

If you are going RAID (at least, as in with a dedicated controller card) I would not use WD Greens, as they aren't built for RAID (WD recommends against it) and they do not have time-limited error recovery.

 

WD Red drives do have time-limited error recovery, and are a better choice.

[bigladuk]

Been running greens 24 7 in my gen 8 ( g7 before that ) with no trouble so not concerned about that.

 

Any reason I shouldn't be running my data drives via usb 3 from a raid enclosure?

 

Can an external enclosure connect via e-sata to the internal sata port for odd ? Is that actually possible ?

[yodafett]

You possible route the on board Sata to an esata port through the swing down bracket hole but it would not be a multi port esata. Best option for you could be an icy dock MB982SPR-2S on the Sata 5 port for mirrored boot drive and then go with 4 4tb drives. Since you were already looking at spending some on drives the cost difference on the drives vs a raid controller would be negligible and give you 2 4TB arrays at a total loss of 1tb but with full built in redundancy.

[bigladuk]

Wow. Everyday is a school day.

 

Will the mb982spr-2s fit in the optical drive bay ?

 

Final question ( I promise ) could you link me to the cables I need to plug the icydock in to odd data port 5 please.

 

Thanks guy, you rock

 

Si

[ikon]

Bigladuk, I would caution you to keep an eye on those Green drives. Of course, people should always keep an eye out for potential problems with their HDDs, but I would urge a little extra caution with the Greens. In my experience, problems creep up on Green drives - they start developing bad sectors. It's a bit insidious IMHO.

[yodafett]

The icy dock is a sata cable. For power best to use a molex splitter on the cable that's underneath the ODD bay and then a molex to sata connector. If it does not fit in the ODD bay the SDM mount can fit 1 3.5 slim drive.

The icy dock is a sata cable. For power best to use a molex splitter on the cable that's underneath the ODD bay and then a molex to sata connector. If it does not fit in the ODD bay the SDM mount can fit 1 3.5 slim drive.