Long time listener, first time caller.
So I have some HP DL 360 & 380 servers all with SFF drive cages. I have a main gen9 server that I run without weirdness but I was gonna do some testing & experiments on the older gen8 chassis such as connecting some LFF SAS drives externally.
Before I worry about cages (maybe proper, maybe 3d printed...) could I use a SAS 8087 cable to 4 port Sata connectors, and attach external power to build an array? I realize I'd have to modify the sata and power cables to fit but I'm trying to avoid buying a proper backplane and cages just for testing.
Thoughts?
In a nutshell I can buy LFF SAS for much less than SFF. For scrap data or testing plex servers I don't feel like investing in drive cages and backplanes until I move beyond just playing and decide on a 5yr plan moving forward.
today my dual E5-2680v4 processors arrived. I installed them with fresh thermal paste and at boot my system idled at 80w... that was according to iLO and a smart power monitor plug that monitors everything plugged into that outlet.
after 5 minutes of run time with 5 - VMs currently running I'm sitting at 120w as a high and 100w average.
My current setup is a DL360 Gen9 with 128gb DDR4. 2 x E5 - 2680 V4 that just replaced my pair of 2637 v3 I should note I don't have any spinning drives installed, only 5 x 128mb sata SSD. I also have an extra 4 port 1gbs PCI card installed and I added p440ar since my server didn't come with a SAS card only the built in sata controller.
Once my slightly longer SAS cables arrive so I can connect the p440ar I'll eventually be at 8x2.5" SAS, 4xsata SSD, 8x3.5" SAS and 4x2.5" sata.
But here we are today running idle at about 100w in my gen9 with a peak of 120w under load.