I have a I have a Supermicro 2U chassis with BPN-SAS2-826EL1 backplane.
Can I just buy a modern motherboard with a 12/13th gen Intel CPU and connect it?
What sort of HBA and cable do I need?
Yup, it’ll work fine. Pretty much any SAS2 HBA with internal ports will work with that backplane, it’s an expander so it only needs one 8087 cable. Look for an LSI 92XX-Xi, where X can be literally anything.
You can’t just use any motherboard. You need an HBA, either on the motherboard or as an add-on card.
Common connectors are sff 8083 and sff 8643
The reason is that You cannot run a SAS expander with SATA ports.
Yes that’ll work.
Look for an LSI 9207-8i as that should work.
If you’re planning on putting the mobo in the supermicro chassis you’ll want to get a front IO adapter in addition to the HBA card so you can use the front power button. This vid will walk you through everything.
The channel also has a youtube store (art of server) that sells genuine LSI and other major brands HBA cards as well as the adapter and lots of other stuff if you need it (cables etc).
You’ll also need an SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cable to connect the backplane to the HBA card.