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raid - Moving MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i to case with a backplane: anything to be scared of?

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Currently we have a "homemade" ESXi
server that has been put in a href="https://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/842/SC842i-500.cfm" rel="nofollow
noreferrer">Supermicro SC842i-500B chassis; this is obviously suboptimal,
given that we do have a RAID 10 setup (6 SATA disks, with a href="http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9240-8i"
rel="nofollow noreferrer">MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i RAID controller) but the
chassis does not support hot-swappable
disks.



Finally, we got a more suitable case
( rel="nofollow noreferrer">Supermicro SC825TQ-R740LPB), which takes less
space, should have a better air flow and, most importantly, has hot-swappable disk
support.




Currently the disks are
connected directly to the RAID controller through two SFF-8087 → 4xSATA cables; the new
case introduces an extra layer - the
backplane.



Given that I have no experience with
SAS, server-grade hardware and backplanes, I have some
doubts:




  • other backplanes I
    read about seem to connect to the RAID card directly href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/7asLs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">through a single
    cable; here however the backplane has just 8 separate SAS ports and the
    controller has only 2 SFF-8087 ports; is it correct to use the split-cables we are
    already using, although they are supposedly SFF-8087 to
    SATA1?

  • what does having a
    backplane between the controller and the disks imply? Do I need to reconfigure something
    in the controller, or it should work "as if nothing happened" (given that I connect the
    same disks to the bays corresponding to the old
    connectors)?

  • the backplane has two
    I2C connectors and two sideband connectors, while the RAID
    controller doesn't seem to have anything like that, so I suppose that the controller and
    the backplane cannot communicate sideband data; should I be
    worried?




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Edit
ok, from what I gathered the sideband connector should come out from the SFF-8087 split
cable, I'll check if the one we are currently using already has it and I didn't notice
or if we have to buy another one; the other questions stand,
however.



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  1. Although, searching "SFF-8087
    to 4 x SAS" yields only "SFF-8087 to 4 x SATA"
    results.



class="post-text" itemprop="text">
class="normal">Answer



Don't
worry!
You have SFF-8087 to SATA cable and you can use it with the new
backplane.
RAID controller won't needed reconfiguration.



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