I need some feedback on my Setup before committing to this project, Please see Image for a visual on my setup
I have been doing a lot of research lately: trying to set this up for maximizing Price per TB
Please don’t tell me to buy chia directly instead, I already have access to 300 TB of SAS HDDs available 
bought locally for around $3 CAD a TB, all were tested and confirmed working!
Edit: Drives are 6TB Seagate - Draw 7.5w
1000 CAD
I have a Dell R720 with A SAS controller 280 CAD, Picked up a SAS expansion card for around 30 CAD. This will give me access to a total of 12 SAS 8087 Ports
310 CAD
I have ordered 12 x 8087 to 4x SAS on Alibaba for around $5 CAD Per Cable
60 CAD
12 x 1xSATA Power to 4xSATA Power $4 CAD Per Cable
48 CAD
Extra Power Supply to power all the drives - Comes with 12 SATA Power Ports
140 CAD
This setup will cost me around 1600 CAD for 300TB of Farm Space, I have a 3d Printer to print out HDD Mounts which will clip on to a amazon basics wire rack. I can fit up to 100 Drives on a 50 dollar Rack based off my measurements. I don’t want to buy HDD enclosures as the Price per Enclosers/Drive will greatly increase my Price Per TB. Unless I can find a awesome deal out there but anything to reduce cost per TB is my main Objective.
Okay That is my Start, Now to my questions about this setup.
How do I go about connecting an external Power Supply to my Dell R720 so my HDD are Powered by the External Power while the DR720 are powered by the PSU which came with the server.
How can I stagger my startup for this amount of drives so there is no power issues when booting all the drives.
Also is it safe for one SATA Cable to support up to 16 Drives? How Can I confirm if the Cables will support the amount of power going through them
You can jumper the supply to come on and power the drives. When your server boots the drives should be ready.
Black ATX Power Supply PSU Jumper Bridge Tool 24 Pin PSUBRIDGE24P Plsatic 1x 710378575795 | eBay
Why did you pick 16tb disks?
His picture shows 500gb disks.
They are Seagate 6tb SAS, idle they say around 7.5w draw
Getting around .15 cent CAD per Kw atm
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500 GB Disk will run in RAID 10 for Plotting, Don’t need insane speed just something to keep filling my drive daily
Drives are not 16 TB, Just the image I used as an example for the setup
Just giving you the feedback from your picture like you wanted.
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At this moment, I’m looking to buy only 18TB disks. And the space to hold them.
8 Bay Hard Drive Rack Holder Cage Case Caddy w/ Fan Mounts 3.5" HDD | eBay
Would only need 6 of these racks
Wow that’s a pretty sweet price to get a 300TB farm, good deal on those drives.
Power consumption will be a bit higher of course relative to using bigger disks but at 15 cents and such low purchase price you’re pretty ok.
Plotting will be pretty slow though, gonna take many months to fill up 300 TB.
Out of curiosity, what power supply is that? how much Amps can it take on the 5V rail?
I was looking into these to hold my drives, With my current setup Idea I would need like 7 of these, costing me around 140 USD… I could probably design something similar to print but they are pretty filament heavy, I’m sure around 2 dollar of filament per Mount. The guy selling these is making some good money off us Chia Miners lol
But an amazon wire rack and some filament to print my own mounts cost me around 65 USD, 3D Printer was already available so I will not count the cost of the Printer. Mounts are around .06 Cent a piece in filament. 3D Printers are truly Amazing and have saved me Hundreds if not thousands over the years!
This is what I don’t understand, Power supply and how much each SATA power can deliver, I’m scared that I will over do it and Burn out the PSU. I have a terrible understanding when it come to Electrical. Would you be able to link a PSU which is a good option for my Setup?
Oh this is pretty cool, I will look into these, I will cancel my order on 1x4 SATA Power Cables and extra PSU for now and calculate pricing on these
Okay After Calculating
Edit: Thought it was 4 driver per cable, turns out its 5! and math was off but fixed now…
99 USD for ChiX +750w + 4 Cables (20 Drives)
30 USD for 6 more cables (30 Drives)
129 USD to connect 50 Drives is Great
Pervious Setup cost $140 CAD For the PSU and $50 CAD for the Cables totaling 190 CAD, Your recommendation save me around 30 bucks and will look a lot cleaner 
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That’s good, think that’s the better solution. Also because as far as I can see the Inwin p85 only has 5 sata power ports on it, not 12 as you mentioned
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All you need to know is already described in this mega thread: Scalable DIY SATA JBOD - Will store over 250 Disks!
Note: the author eventually abandoned the DIY and transitioned to enterprise jbods
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Just get 512 GB RAM.
Forget 16 TB HDDs, get 18 TB Drives. Saves you money for cables, HBA etc.
