I’m getting ready to pull the trigger on an HL 15. My plan is to purchase the Chassis, Backplane, and PSU. I currently have an truenas server with an AsrockRack X570d4u that I plan on just moving over there and taking the 3 SSDs and dropping em in plus more. My question is what data cables should I pick out? I watched Level1s video and I think I may need an HBA card. curious if anyone has a similar build or some knowledge as my knowledge about SAS Sata etc… isn’t the best
Your board has eight 7-pin SATA connectors. So, if you “just move over” your mobo it will only support eight of the 15 drive bays in the HL15. To get access to the other 7 bays you will eventually need some sort of HBA with a minimum of eight SAS lanes. That will probably have two SFF-8087 or two SFF-8643 connectors. SFF-8087 and SFF-8643 connectors support fhe equivalent of four SATA disks. SFF-8643 is more modern and supports 12 gbps but is a bit more expensive. SFF-8087 is fine for spinning disks.
The backplane has four SFF-8643 connectors.
So, you would get Set D, E or G. Set D would connect half the drives to the mobo and half the drives to an SFF-8643 HBA. Set E would connect half the drives to the mobo and half the drives to an SFF-8087 HBA. Set G would connect half the drives to the mobo and half the drives to a PCI card with an additional 8 SATA ports (probably not recommended).
If you didn’t want to use all (or 7 of) the SATA ports on the mobo, you can also get HBAs with four SFF-8643 commectors, so the HBA would support the connectivity for all the backplane drives.
It really depends a bit on your budget and long term plans for the type of storage drives you plan to use and speed requirements. Any of those 3 sets would get you started.connecting to the motherboard. Changing out the cables (Say if you bought set D but then decided to get an HBA with SFF-8087 connectors) isn’t difficult but is a bit time consuming since the backplane connectors are mounted under the backplane. You have to take out the drives and drive cage, then 16 screws that hold the backplane down to get at the backplane connectors.
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ahhhh this helps a ton. after looking in some other spots I think I am going to do the SFF 8463 cables and then get an HBA card. not sure if I should do the LSI 9300, 9305, or 9400 now lol next steps
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That should be good. Unless you have specific requirements, I’d go with whichever of those HBAs you can find cheapest, but that’s just me. It may be counterintuitive, but the newer generation cards typically use more power and give off more heat. So if fan noise is a factor you might want to go with the earlier versions.
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I have the 9500-16i and 9500-8e in each HL15 and they get hot 
Not to the point of not working any more but they certainly seem to prefer the top of the case on, and some air moving over the cards.
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