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SAS Drive Converter

cthulhuiscool

cthulhuiscool

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 15, 2006
Messages
3,065
I found a bunch of cheap SAS 7200rpm 1tb drives and was wondering if there's an inexpensive way to link a few (say 4) in my desktop for standard use. I'm okay with a bit of janky solutions so long as they're reliable.
 
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kyang357 said:
I used something like this and this.
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This is easiest way to do it. It's messy with all the cables, but works rock solid.

Probably the most important thing to focus on is the "IT Mode", it means the drives just show up in the operating system the same as if they were plugged into SATA ports on the motherboard.

You can take your chances with using a stock board, but getting into the Option BIOS screen to manage the disks is not always guaranteed depending on the manufacture (looking at you Dell, HP, etc)
 
If you want to save yourself some headaches with putting sata power cables to each of the breakout cables, Icy Dock has some good hotswap options if you have room in your case for them. Just wire the breakout cables to the back of the cage and give it power.

https://global.icydock.com/products-c4-s50-i0.html
 
Just make sure the docks specifically say SAS compatible for the model you are looking at. I think JONSBO offers several high capacity cases that have SAS compatible backplanes.

The other evil trick with SAS drives is the 3.3v orange wire on modern SATA power connectors. You will likely have to remove that wire. Either by cutting it from the power harness or using a cable adapter that specifically omits that wire. All you want is red, yellow and black…NO ORANGE!
 
westrock2000 said:
Just make sure the docks specifically say SAS compatible for the model you are looking at. I think JONSBO offers several high capacity cases that have SAS compatible backplanes.

The other evil trick with SAS drives is the 3.3v orange wire on modern SATA power connectors. You will likely have to remove that wire. Either by cutting it from the power harness or using a cable adapter that specifically omits that wire. All you want is red, yellow and black…NO ORANGE!
Click to expand...
just make sure orange is actually 3.3v and not some bullshit purple or blue like Dell throws at us.
 
Should have asked in OP, but can these drives be used for standard use (mostly data backup, but I may throw on a few rarely used bloated programs as well) or are there usage restrictions?
 
SAS drives are exactly the same as SATA from a user perspective. They are usually considered more dependable because they are sold as enterprise solutions. But that means they often use a little more power and are a little louder because server rooms don't care about quality of life. I personally view used SAS drives as the same reliability as new consumer SATA drives. The Mean Time Between Fails might be higher and the Bit Error Rate I think is usally one power higher (like 10 to the 16th versus 10 to the 15th). I think all the SAS drives I have ever used are 7200 RPM's....none of the 5400 RPM stuff.
 
cthulhuiscool said:
Should have asked in OP, but can these drives be used for standard use (mostly data backup, but I may throw on a few rarely used bloated programs as well) or are there usage restrictions?
Click to expand...

Here are some sample stats from Seagates website comparing SAS to SATA. SAS in general perform better. And yes, 2.5 million hours of Mean Time Between Failures is 280 years....so don't take that too seriously....

1787609151465.png


1787609160352.png
 
westrock2000 said:
Here are some sample stats from Seagates website comparing SAS to SATA. SAS in general perform better. And yes, 2.5 million hours of Mean Time Between Failures is 280 years....so don't take that too seriously....

View attachment 821935

View attachment 821936
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MTBF is such a tricky marketing metric. It's not how long an individual drive will last, but how many drives you have to have to experience a failure every hour on average. So at 2.5M hours, you can expect one drive failure in every ~60 drives during the 5 year warranty period... statistically. A consumer drive with 300k hours and a two year warranty would mean 1 in ~20 drives is expected to fail with within the two year warranty period. Bathtub curves not withstanding.

That 2,400hrs/yr POH rating is problematic though.
 
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El_Capitan said:
PCIe HBA Controller Card. Inspur LSI YZCA-00424-101 12Gbps SAS 3.0 RAID Controller CARD HBA HDD. $14.99. Price went up a dollar since I got one.
SFF-8643 Internal Mini SAS HD to (4) 29pin SFF-8482 connectors with SAS 15pin Power Port 12GB/S Cable (1M) (H0204). $13.57. Price went down a could of dollars since I got two.

That should do it. I can't remember if those are the right cables for the HBA Controller Card I used, but I think it is. I have so many cables...
Click to expand...
Ended up going with this solution here, plus some 2.5 -> 3.5 trays that I can stick to the bottom of the case with some double sided gorilla tape. Janky solutions for an age where all storage is going to flock camera data surveillance an ai fake boyfriends for aging millenial spinsters. What a brave new world we live in...

https://ebay.io/m/d5TY9l
These are the drives I bought in case anyone is interested since they seem like a good deal, especially if bought in bulk. Not my listing, just figured I'd share.
 
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