SAS RAID advice

[howartp]

Hello

 

We have two old servers circa 2009/10 that have about 70TB of usable storage between them, via SAS disk trays.

 

The SAS/RAID controller for the first won't go past Server 2008 R2, and on the second it's not supported past 2016 though physically allows the install of 2019.

 

I've never really purchased anything SAS or RAID before (except part of a tendered procurement); can I just buy a new server with any random modern SAS RAID controller cards and attach the existing disk trays to them? (I know I'll have to rebuild arrays etc, that's fine)

 

Or are the disk trays fixed/paired with their respective make/model/version of controller?

 

This is for Veeam backup repositories prior to/alongside going cloud - i don't want to buy new storage, but no problem buying a new server and RAID cards to bring the old trays into use.

 

Advice welcome.

 

(One is an IBM EXP3000 tray with ServeRAID MR10M, the other is HP StorageWorks D2700 with P421 Smart Array)

 

Peter

Edited March 18, 2022 by howartp

[mavhc]

What are the connectors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Attached_SCSI#Connectors

[howartp]

What are the connectors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Attached_SCSI#Connectors

 

External Mini-SAS

[mavhc]

Should just work with anything, but possibly features like tray id lights and fan speeds would be a problem. Worst thing would be you'd buy a case for all the drives that's not proprietary.

 

How many disks, what size?

 

Without an expander the cable will do 4 drives, so you'd either have multiple cables from a raid/hba with external ports, or an expander at the other end