[kwlug-disc] OT: SAS cables/controller cards (and Fibrechannel?)

Wed May 22 12:32:39 EDT 2019

Apologies Charles, for the late reply, brutally slammed.
Yes, I will drop the bits off next week, likely Wed and have a peek at the
arrays.
I will send a heads-up an hour before I pop by.

Thanks,

Ron Singh

On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 9:26 AM Charles M <chaslinux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Ron, I believe the Fibre channel arrays are probably wiped, but
> it's been so long since we got those particular arrays that I'm not
> entirely sure. The arrays came from a source I would expect would be
> pretty concerned about data. That said we still wipe drives regardless
> of what people tell us (for our own peace of mind). We held off trying
> to wipe those particular drives since the control unit for the fibre
> channel drives apparently has some software issues.
>
> Paul, I thought I'd mention that we sprung for PartedMagic, so in
> addition to dBan we've started using that for SSD's and the like.
> (I've already put it on the PXE server).
>
> If you happen to drop those off Ron just make sure you ask for either
> Martin, Charles, Kirk, or Berleine [our IT dept] (Paul still does a
> lot of work for us, but he's not often on site). The official address
> is 58 Queen Street south. Computer Recycling has a door on the corner
> of Queen and Charles street, directly across from Full Circle Foods
> health store (Charles street). If you happen to have a bit of time I'd
> be happy to show you the arrays.
>
> We've definitely run into that time issue, we had a client that asked
> for an 8 pass RCMP standard for a 1TB drive and that took a couple of
> days. We haven't used PartedMagic a lot, but I hear it might be a bit
> quicker than DBan. The price for a single license was really cheap,
> something like $14.
>
> Paul, really appreciate this as this is one of those priority things
> that just always kept getting shelved dealing with the daily grind and
> other projects!
>
> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 4:48 PM Ron Singh <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 4 things --
> >
> > 1 - can you give some idea of the storage capacity of the arrays? See,
> these arrays are loud as hell, suck a lot of juice($$$ to run) and if >8
> years old, pretty low in capacity. Buying cables/cards to use them as
> storage devices for PCs/servers would not be cost-effective by any stretch.
> >
> > 2 - Fibre-stuff, though fast, can be spendy to get up and running as
> cables/cards are not cheap to come by or free for that matter. Most of the
> >8yo FC arrays were along the lines of 2tb-4tb of raw storage that sucks
> some 120w-150w depending on speeds of the HDDs. Those 10KRPM HDDs are
> power-hungry.
> >
> > 3 - I have some Intel and 3Ware 9650se-8 ML cards(PCI/e 8087-conn) that
> can be borrowed, I am sure I have the some short(18") 8087-8087 cables in
> hand too.  These are capable of 3Gbps SAS/SATA.
> >
> > In most cases, it is worthwhile popping the drives out and returning
> them to service in a desktop with a bunch of open bays and tossing the
> original cage. Again, limited storage to be gained as the world is all
> about 4TB HDDs and 1TB SSDs these days.
> >
> > 4  - The fact that you have drive arrays in this privacy-aware world is
> surprising. My IT shop regularly get some of this older stuff with the raid
> array scrubbed, but scrubbed poorly since an 8-drive 2.4tb(raw) array takes
> about 4 days to complete a 3-pass DOD-type scrub. We are tasked with
> destroying said array, we do that by drilling the hell out of the drives so
> that the platters become a mess of broken glassy bits.
> >
> > You are welcome to borrow as many as 4 cards from my local IT joint for
> up to 2 months if you feel they can be useful.
> > I could bring them by 50 Queen(?) or wherever the arrays are residing.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Ron Singh
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 1:31 AM Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc <
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> This is pretty off-topic, but I will ask anyways.
> >>
> >> I am doing a small project with Computer Recycling to sort through a
> >> large number of drive arrays they have received. I am running into
> >> trouble because we are missing cables and controller cards for some of
> >> this hardware. I am wondering whether any of you have spares (or old
> >> stuff) around that I could borrow for a while (or maybe that we could
> >> purchase). We have thought about purchasing cables ourselves, but
> >> cables are not cheap, and we don't know whether this equipment is any
> >> good.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I am not super-familiar with this world so I am probably saying stupid
> >> things. Please forgive me and correct my misunderstandings.
> >>
> >> I am taking descriptions of ports here:
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Attached_SCSI#Connectors
> >>
> >> I have an IBM SR-BR10i (maybe a rebranded LSI SAS 3082E-R) RAID
> >> controller card which might work for testing the drive arrays. It has
> >> two ports which I think take in SFF-8087 connectors.  I do not know
> >> for certain whether this card works and I do not know whether it is
> >> sufficient to connect and test these drive arrays.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I have a Dell MD 1000 that I think takes in an SFF-8470 connector (the
> >> Infiniband one from the Wikipedia page), but I do not have any cable
> >> with that end.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I have some IBM drive arrays that I am hoping to test. Most of them are
> >> IBM exn3000 (alternatively: 2857-NAS) that I believe have QSFP ports.
> >> We have some QSFP cables and I have one that I believe is SFF-8088 to
> >> QSFP. But I do not think I can connect a SFF-8087 to a QSFP directly,
> >> so I need an adaptor? I am not sure how this works. I do have one IBM
> >> server that I have used to successfully detect the drive arrays, but
> >> that is about as far as I can go, because the built-in RAID controller
> >> is not well-supported by Linux any more.
> >>
> >> There are not good pictures of QSFP connectors, but here is the
> >> wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSFP
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> We also have some oldish IBM drive arrays that have Fibrechannel
> >> connectors. I have no idea whether I can make these work, or what I
> >> would need to do so (I think I need big expensive proprietary IBM
> >> controller that I cannot use without expensive proprietary software I
> >> don't have). Maybe I can access those drives directly? They have
> >> connectors that look like this:
> >>
> >>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel_electrical_interface#40-pin_%22SCA-2%22_disk_connector
> >>
> >> In particular, here is somebody selling one of the models in the array
> >> for some money:
> >>
> >>
> http://www.harddrivesdirect.com/product_info.php?products_id=456786_73P8017
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Anyways, if you have some of the cables/adaptors/cards/etc that I
> >> would need to test this equipment then please get in touch. If you
> >> know in particular what I should be looking to get in order to test it
> >> that would be helpful too. Our goal is to evaluate some of this stuff
> >> for internal use, but if for some reason you want to purchase it from
> >> Computer Recycling (especially the Fibrechannel stuff) then we may be
> >> able to make arrangements. In the worst case we will give up, strip
> >> what we can and then e-waste the rest.
> >>
> >> - Paul
> >>
> >>
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> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Charles McColm
> Computer Recycling: http://www.comprec.org
> Fasteroids: http://www.fasteroids.ca
> Twitter/Identica/Google+: @chaslinux
>
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