The Supermicro BPN-SAS3-826EL1-N4 is a 12-bay 2U enterprise SAS3/SATA expander backplane designed for high-density storage servers and data center systems. It provides 12 drive bays supporting 3.5" SAS or SATA drives and is widely used in Supermicro chassis such as the 826 series for scalable storage configurations.

This backplane uses 12Gb/s SAS3 connectivity through an integrated expander, allowing multiple drives to be connected through a simplified cabling design. In hybrid configurations, select bays also support NVMe (depending on chassis and cabling), making it suitable for mixed storage workloads that require both high-speed flash and large-capacity HDDs.

Specifications:

• Part Number: BPN-SAS3-826EL1-N4
• Type: SAS3 / SATA / NVMe Expander Backplane
• Form Factor: 2U 12-Bay LFF (3.5")
• Drive Support: Up to 12 x 3.5" SAS3 / SATA drives
• Interface Speed: 12Gb/s SAS3
• Architecture: Single expander design
• Hybrid Support: NVMe support on select bays (system dependent)
• Compatibility: Supermicro 826-series and compatible chassis

Features:

• Supports up to 12 enterprise storage drives in a single backplane
• 12Gb/s SAS3 expander for high-speed data transfer
• Flexible support for SAS, SATA, and NVMe (depending on configuration)
• Reduces cabling complexity using integrated expander architecture
• Designed for high-density storage and RAID environments
• Optimized for 24/7 enterprise data center operation
• Ideal for storage servers, backup systems, and virtualization platforms
• Durable design for continuous heavy I/O workloads