I need support for HDD connection and config

[artwise]

Hi for all

Which is the best solution to connect and cofing 100 pcs HDD 16TB SATA 3.5 to one PC. they are with plots just i need for farm, and I dont want to use harvester

I need best soluton for hardwer that i can connect them

Thanks

[Bones]

Read here, I went usb, and its a pita, bad lookup times.
I’d check with the OP of thread first, but I don’t believe they have issues with lookups.

Scalable DIY SATA JBOD - Will store over 250 Disks!

Hey all, here’s an update to my post back in May about my DIY farming rig. Here’s an updated pic! [IMG_2415] It has grown from 22 drives back then to over 60 drives today with about 20 more to install and space for over 250! I’ve created custom 3d printed rails and sliders for the hard drives so they are easy to slide in and out. Currently I’ve got 60 drives loaded in bottom 3 shelves. Here’s a closeup so you can see the drives have 2 rows per shelf (front and back): [IMG_2413] I’ve also u…

[enderTown]

@Bones

I’d check with the OP of thread first, but I don’t believe they have issues with lookups.

Nope, no issues at all! I have recently split my farm into 3 harvesters but it’s mostly because I wanted to learn about independent harvesters - I knew I couldn’t scale indefinitely on a single PC. But at one point I had a single old PowerEdge controlling over 100 SATA drives!

[artwise]

Thank you very much for your feedback

@enderTown how did you connect over 100 SATA drives on PowerEdge, I have PowerEdge R740xd but it has only 18 sata port, I cant connect more 18 pcss HDD on this Server.

I have 6 pcs dell servers R740xd on each one I have installed 18 pcs HDD but I want to remove 5 pcs server and to use only one server that I can install all hdds on one server,

Please let me know which controller I can use on this server to connect over 100 SATA drives

Thank you in advance

[Bones]

My issue, sorry for of topic, but kinda related.
I can farm for 18 hrs with no issues.
But occasionally I get warnings for looking up qualities.
It only happens if I get more than one lookup within 1 second.
I dont understand why I’m sometimes searching my plots 7 x within 1 sec to look for proofs when block times are apx 10 sec apart.
At this point I’m not sure if it’s my usb setup, or chia software forcing me to check to often for some crazy reason.
But I’d advise new ppl to avoid usb till I know more.

Our of curiosity, if you don’t mind sharing the info or pm me ( understand if you want to keep it pvt ) .

1. Are you pooling? I believe difficulty could stop my issue by reducing checks.

2. What’s your capacity in TiB? I’m at just over 500.

Edit.

@artwise it’s all in the thread, but maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get the answers without digging.

[artwise]

@Bones

t’s all in the thread, but maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get the answers without digging

Thank you for your feedback and your support.

[enderTown]

@artwise

how did you connect over 100 SATA drives on PowerEdge

Those are great servers! Mine was an older R620, so you should great performance on those newer servers. I use PCI-E SATA add-in cards that support Port Multipliers. Each port from the add-in card can be connected to a port multiplier and each port multiplier can then control 5 SATA drives. The port multipliers are cheap - this is “poor man’s SAS” lol. More details in the thread linked above!

@Bones

if you don’t mind sharing the info

Sure! With this setup I’ve currently got the same - just over 500TB. I’m at about 130 4tb SATA drives shared between 3 harvesters. The harvesters are old used Dell Optiplex small-form-factor PCs. You can get them for $50-100 on ebay. They are more powerful than a Raspberry Pi and also include 2 PCI-e slots for the SATA expansion/port multipliers OR PCI-e USB expansion cards. You probably would get better/more stable performance by splitting your farming into at least 2 harvesters, and once you get past the first harvester configuration, adding more harvesters is easy!

And I’m both pooling and solo’ing, about half and half right now. Once I totally fill my disks, I start replacing OG plots with NFT plots until I get more disks.

[artwise]

Thank you very much for your time and your support, really i appreciate

[Bones]

Many thanks for that.
I’m sure pooling and difficulty would stop me searching multiple times in a second.
It’s not the route I wanted to take, but I’ve stopped plotting while I fix this, and I’d rather be growing again.

If you were all solo, it’d be more comparable, but I’m nearly 50% nft plots and if pooling let’s me grow I’ll bite the bullet and try it.

[rfc2324]

If you have extra $$ and want to get professional grade equipment, then SAS is the way to go:

4U 24Bay

This JBOD can host 24 SATA drives and it connects to your farmer directly through a SAS cable (you will need a PCIE expansion card for it). There are more costly JBODs that can contain up to 90 disks in one unit! But they are very expensive.

Also when constructing system from JBODs from same manufacturer, usually you can “daisy chain” them, such that up to 5 of them can be served from a single SAS port.

Other manufacturers offer USB JBODs:

Page Not Found | QNAP

[artwise]

Dear
Thank you very much for your feedback

Is it possible to put hdds and configuration on jbod without lost data, because i have full hdds with plots, hdds are non raid configuration.

Thanks

[Bones]

Yes, if non raid, that will work.
But older jbod will not work with 16 tb drives.
I dont use jbod, I believe sas2 or sas 3 would work, but don’t take my word, research or wait for another more knowledgeable person.

[Mugen0815]

Thumbs up for sas-solution when using more than 16 drives.

Pros:

• rly cheap when buying used ones on ebay
• no USB-limits
• usually built-in cooling
• easy powering and cable
• space-effective

Cons:

• mostly loud because of cooling
• require additional HBA-card
• not possible with raspberry
• expensive when using less than 16 drives

[rfc2324]

I use JBOD sans digital. Spec says up to 12TB drives, but it is just old documentation - maybe at that time this was largest capacity. In reality I use it with 18TB drives no problem.

And JBOD doesn’t impose a particular RAID configuration. It is up to you how to build it and depends on the expansion card controller. By default these cards are “flashed” in non-raid mode (so each disk will operate individually).

When it comes to 100x 16TB drives, it costs like $30000 retail. If you want them to last, you should not make some janky rig with home made components. It would make sense if you get HDDs for dime a dozen - so if it breaks, no big deal. But lots of 16TB drives are a big deal.

[drhicom]

Hello, Can you remember back in 1985 when we only had 5mb hard disks (ST506), we have come a long way!!

[ch3cooh]

I have a perfect solution.

[shin]

When I first saw this photo, I decided to make the same one.
However, I gave up because I couldn’t process the metal finely.
How did you make this cool box?

[xkredr59]

@drhicom

Hello, Can you remember back in 1985 when we only had 5mb hard disks (ST506), we have come a long way!!

I do, had one of those plus matching controller in my first homebrew pc. Around '86 indeed. Must have cost more than 18TB today. Still not as bad as my first micro, Rockwell AIM-65. Spend a summer working to pay for a 3 kByte memory upgrade

[drhicom]

I remember the WD controller’s with two cables for MFM 20pin and 34 pin, my first 5mb cost almost $500.00

[drhicom]

Back in 1979 my radio Shack Model - I had 4k