Recycled N36L: External storage for HP P222 RAID and Sophos UTM

[schoondoggy]

I had thought about this for a while and finally found the parts to do it. The Sophos side is easy OS drive and DVD in the ODD bay and a dual or quad NIC on the motherboard. To pass the four drive bays to another server I needed to find a SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 converter:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133055&cm_re=norco_sff-8088-_-16-133-055-_-Product

For the Sophos NIC I am using an HP NC364T.

Disconnect the mini SAS connector from the motherboard and connect it to the converter:

Back view of the N36L now with four 1Gb E connections and a external port for access to the four internal drive bays:

With a SFF-8088 cable I have connected the four drives in the N36L directly to the P222 RAID controller in my MS Gen8;

 

All of the drives showed up fine and I created RAID sets. I want to do some testing to be sure there are no issues, but so far so good.

I will test Sophos next to be sure it works on the N36l and the quad NIC.

[TLN]

I got pretty much rhe same idea, about two gen8.

But got two queations:

How do you gonna power drives in externak enclosure? Grab power from G8 or from G7? In that case you gotta turn it on first, correct?

And most interesting queation: how p222 will handle power outage of external enclosure? Or what kind of raid you gonna use? Raid 6 on 8 drives will live with6 drives in, but what will happen if half goes down?

 

I would peraonally get the power from G8. I remember people reported that it uses 55w of power not sure how many drives though. Even if 55w for empty box, psu is 180w and it will handle 8drives in two cases.

P.s. guess someone posted here 14 drives in g8?

[schoondoggy]

I got pretty much rhe same idea, about two gen8.

But got two queations:

How do you gonna power drives in externak enclosure? Grab power from G8 or from G7? In that case you gotta turn it on first, correct?

And most interesting queation: how p222 will handle power outage of external enclosure? Or what kind of raid you gonna use? Raid 6 on 8 drives will live with6 drives in, but what will happen if half goes down?

 

I would peraonally get the power from G8. I remember people reported that it uses 55w of power not sure how many drives though. Even if 55w for empty box, psu is 180w and it will handle 8drives in two cases.

P.s. guess someone posted here 14 drives in g8?

The drives in the N36L run from its own PSU. The N36L should be powered on first, but the Gen 8 boots so slow it should be fine.

If the P222 does not see the drives it will mark them as failed or missing. Both of these servers are connected to the same UPS so I am not concerned about power issues. I tend to use RAID5 or RAID10 and use four drives per set. 

I dont think the PS in the Gen 8 has enough power for eight 3.5" drives. start up power for four big drives is almost 150W on its own.

[oj88]

That's awesome. I might consider this approach in the future.

 

Possibly the only downside I can see is that the PSU is potentially the single point of failure. If it goes out, two systems will be affected at the same time (storage and firewall). But for lab or non-critical use, the functionality it affords outweighs the cons. Thanks for the idea.

[Joe_Miner]

It's like waking up and finding out it's Christmas morning  -- beautiful Post!

 

Thanks Schoondoggy

[Joe_Miner]

Did you get your cable at Newegg?

[jmwills]

Hmmmmm, (light bulb goes off in head)

[schoondoggy]

Did you get your cable at Newegg?

I think it came with the Sans Digital box I bought some time ago.

eBay is a good low price source for SFF-8088 cables as well.

[jmwills]

Check MonoPrice as well.

[Joe_Miner]

Thanks!  You are the Kings of shopping for lowest prices!