Hello friends. Wondering about if I understand how an expander works in a jbod \ server setup and limitations. If I understand it correctly you can use an expander on any SAS (example I have a LSI 9207 8i) and could use an expander (let's say a backplane I've found that has 24 drive capacity LSI 2X36). From information I've gathered looks like if you use one port of the SAS it won't be as fast but if use 2 to the SAS card it'll be faster. I'm going to assume the speeds will be limited to the SAS capabilities?
On the same vein of connectivity. Can you take two separate expanders and run them to the same SAS? Or is it better practice to run separate SAS for each expander. Also I see some specifications for the cables being mini SFF and I guess regular SFF? Also seems the standard is SFF 8087? Is that the port on the cards or the cable standard?
Also it seems that expander cards only need power but are usually PCIE. So technically you can run an adapter from PSU to a PCIE power adapter and avoid the mobo altogether.
At current I'm looking to upgrade to a 4u 24 drive bay server rack and maybe at some point add either another 4u 24 bay or a smaller 12 bay jbod. But this would be way down the road as the 24 bay will keep my needs up plenty for awhile.
Thanks all for the clarity and information.