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SAS on a desktop

R

rigurat

Limp Gawd
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Jun 1, 2010
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291
I saw a similar topic on another but it didn't answer everything.

What's it like to have SAS drives on a desktop? How does it look, how does it feel? Does it work like a SATA drive only faster?

You need a SAS controller but do you need special software for it to work?

What's it like to boot from them? Can you do the usual desktop tasks on these?

I'm considering SAS drives for important data because of reliability. I don't plan to boot from it (yet).
 
Greetings

rigurat said:
What's it like to have SAS drives on a desktop? How does it look, how does it feel? Does it work like a SATA drive only faster?
Click to expand...

Basically yes as they can run at 15K,10K and 7200 RPM, even if they run at the same speed 7200 (Sata's) or 10K (like 10K Raptors) compared to SATA drives at the same speed they typically have better and stronger actuator motors leading to faster seek times.

rigurat said:
You need a SAS controller but do you need special software for it to work?
Click to expand...

Usually all you need is the driver for the controller for it to work

rigurat said:
What's it like to boot from them? Can you do the usual desktop tasks on these?
Click to expand...

Controller must have a BIOS and it must be turned on for you to boot from it. If its turned off the drives usually are passive and non-bootable.

rigurat said:
I'm considering SAS drives for important data because of reliability. I don't plan to boot from it (yet).
Click to expand...

Not recommended if this is all your interested in because as a rough rule of thumb the SAS drives have a failure rate of 0.75% p.a. compared to SATA at 1.5% p.a. In either case the failure rate is still >0% so prevention of data loss can't be guaranteed either way.

There are a few other complications.

(a) Manufacturers of controllers don't support their cards working in consumer motherboards only server ones, there are fewer number of server motherboards so It's easier to support them, if they did support consumer boards then they would account for <10% of the sales but probably >90% of support enquiries.

(b) In addition I have been led to believe from what I've read on the net that consumer motherboard manufacturers tweak SLI and Crossfire performance and hence their PCI-e x16 slots deviate from the PCI-e specifications to enhance multi video card performance meaning that the PCI-e x16 slots don't cope well with anything other than video cards placed in them, also

(c) Option ROM space may be a problem (or unavailable) on consumer motherboards, this is the real mode address between MSDOS's 640KB and the 1MB limit, in hexadecimal this is from A0000 to FFFFF, some controllers have ports in this range and if unavailable the controller fails to work and in some cases even start or worse still locks up your system, server motherboards should not be a problem in this regard.

So server motherboards are recommended and also XEON cpu's which you must have to use the ECC function on ECC memory.

For reliability I recommend you get a server motherboard, ECC memory, XEON cpu, M1015 controller card and then if you want get SAS drives, since the failure rate for drives is still >0% you will need either hardware raid of some kind together with enterprise drives that have the TLER function available (which all SAS drives have but only Enterprise SATA's do but not desktop SATA's), or you can use something like ZFS Raid-Z2 as two parity drives should protect you from even two drive failures in which case you can use cheaper consumer non-TLER SATA drives instead, lastly you still need to backup your data.

If you need to buy a new consumer motherboard I suggest the Gigabyte X79S-UP5 which replaces the Intel X79 chipset with the Intel server C606 chipset, it has 8 SAS ports which can run SAS or SATA drives (but not optical drives) as well as the 6 SATA's, you can boot off any of the 14 ports with a SATA drive, you can have any S2011 cpu in there including XEON's and if you have a XEON you can also run ECC memory. Solaris 11.1 runs well on the board as I got every thing to work on it with the exception of the USB3 ports and the second Realtek ethernet port.

If you want to know more about SAS/SATA drive differences then I suggest you read this and this.

I think this should give you a general guide about SAS drives, I'm sure other people can chime in with detailed answers to any questions you may have about specific hardware/software you may be interested in.

Cheers
 
I ran a pair of 73gb 15k SAS drives in my desktop on a dell perc 6/ir in a RAID0, was a nice setup, replaced my U320 SCSI setup... but eventually went SSD and never looked back :)
 
SAS is just an interface. There are SAS SSDs.

I'll bet you'll never notice, even if you're trying, wether you're using a disk drive (SSD or HDD) on a SAS or SATA interface.

Reliability is also not of importance, since your important data will be backed up (right?). If you're talking about uptime, RAID is what you want, not a different interface on your disk.
 
spazoid said:
SAS is just an interface. There are SAS SSDs.

I'll bet you'll never notice, even if you're trying, wether you're using a disk drive (SSD or HDD) on a SAS or SATA interface.

Reliability is also not of importance, since your important data will be backed up (right?). If you're talking about uptime, RAID is what you want, not a different interface on your disk.
Click to expand...

Backup doesn't give 100% safety, so the reliability of the source is not irreelevant.

RAID can give better reliability if properly set up.
 
That's a compelling reply. Most people don't suggest SAS hardware on desktops because of price.

I never though SAS hardware could actually cause problems on a desktop motherboard.
 
ATWindsor said:
Backup doesn't give 100% safety, so the reliability of the source is not irreelevant.

RAID can give better reliability if properly set up.
Click to expand...

Nothing will give you 100% safety, but a backup is the closest you'll get.

Will you deny that having a source back up to an off site target is more safe than mirroring your source and not having a backup?

I'm not saying RAID will not increase reliability of your data, but it can in no way compare to a properly configured backup solution.
 
spazoid said:
Nothing will give you 100% safety, but a backup is the closest you'll get.

Will you deny that having a source back up to an off site target is more safe than mirroring your source and not having a backup?

I'm not saying RAID will not increase reliability of your data, but it can in no way compare to a properly configured backup solution.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, off site backup is safer, but having a safer source and off site backup is even safer. Its an individual choice based on the value of data compared to other things.

You don't have to choose, you can have both RAID and a properly configured backup solution. (or maybe even having the best kind of backups-solution is difficult)
 
rigurat said:
That's a compelling reply. Most people don't suggest SAS hardware on desktops because of price.

I never though SAS hardware could actually cause problems on a desktop motherboard.
Click to expand...

The entire point of ASUS true enthusiast line (and it's WS not ROG) is that they are validated for RAID cards, NIC cards, and other stuff. Other companies have similar lines.

You just won't see them talked all that much about on gaming forums. But on enthusiast and professional forums those compatibility items are really important.
 
acerbic said:
The entire point of ASUS true enthusiast line (and it's WS not ROG) is that they are validated for RAID cards, NIC cards, and other stuff. Other companies have similar lines.

You just won't see them talked all that much about on gaming forums. But on enthusiast and professional forums those compatibility items are really important.
Click to expand...

I had a couple ASUS WS (workstation) series boards and they had all sorts of problems with (real) RAID cards, so don't be so sure about what the marketing is selling you
 
I'm running a pair of SAS SSDs in my primary desktop. It's pretty awesome. The price is not. You wouldn't notice the difference. If you're considering 15k SAS drives, get a SATA SSD.
 
Blue Fox said:
I'm running a pair of SAS SSDs in my primary desktop. It's pretty awesome. The price is not. You wouldn't notice the difference. If you're considering 15k SAS drives, get a SATA SSD.
Click to expand...

well it depends on how much storage you need...

15k SAS drives are dirt cheap/gb compared to SSD...

but ideally yes SSD is better in every way including not needing SAS controllers
 
I would be interested in knowing which asus WS motherboards you had problems with and which controllers. I have had areca, adaptec 5805, and LSI 9265 and 9260s on just about every last release of the ASUS WS motherboards with zero issues. Crap I am even running them on the non WS motherboards without incident. Sometimes they are touchy about the slot they are placed in on the older stuff. But in the last 4 years, I have not had a single issue.
 
rigurat said:
That's a compelling reply. Most people don't suggest SAS hardware on desktops because of price.

I never though SAS hardware could actually cause problems on a desktop motherboard.
Click to expand...

Meh, I say do it....

There is no good reason why you shouldn't if you have the gear......this is afterall "HARD"ocp

so go hard;)

You could also ask the question.... should I put a 350 chevy engine in a Ford Pinto.?

If you have the engine and the car and a workshop/tools.......go for it.:p

SAS is Full duplex (Read and write at the same time)
vs
SATA being Simplex.....(Read or write)

Depends what you do as to if you will notice any difference.....

.
 
slavearm said:
I would be interested in knowing which asus WS motherboards you had problems with and which controllers. I have had areca, adaptec 5805, and LSI 9265 and 9260s on just about every last release of the ASUS WS motherboards with zero issues. Crap I am even running them on the non WS motherboards without incident. Sometimes they are touchy about the slot they are placed in on the older stuff. But in the last 4 years, I have not had a single issue.
Click to expand...

had issue with an HP U320 SCSI RAID card in my socket 1366 WS board (worked ok in my 775 WS board) and had issues with Dell PERC SAS cards in both

the HP was the biggest pain since I could not for the life of me get the option rom to come up, so I had to configure it in another pc and then drop it into the WS board, but it was flying blind at boot... could only see what was going on in the raid card via the windows utility
 
I was planning to get 2 SAS drives in RAID 1 and tuck away all the important data in it. Or course it's already backed up on several external drives, blu ray's, and online.

I currently use the ASUS P6T7WS motherboard, so I guess I'm good to go for a SAS controller?

It actually has one built in but I'd rather get a better off-board card.
 
Last edited:
You don't need a SAS controller. The P6T7 already has one. The two black ports above the 6 blue SATA ones are SAS.
 
rigurat said:
I was planning to get 2 SAS drives in RAID 1 and tuck away all the important data in it. Or course it's already backed up on several external drives, blu ray's, and online.

I currently use the ASUS P6T7WS motharboard, so I guess I'm good to go for a SAS controller?
Click to expand...

Had no issues with the P6T6 WS and LSI cards. Used them with gigabyte and Asrock boards as well. I use this enclosure with 4 15k drives in RAID 10 for ripping blu-rays. Figure it's better to write and erase on them then SSDs.

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Drive-Removable-Mobile-Backplane/dp/B003F5NSA6/
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Blue Fox said:
You don't need a SAS controller. The P6T7 already has one. The two black ports above the 6 blue SATA ones are SAS.
Click to expand...

Indeed, but I'd rather get a better offboard card like an LSI Megaraid, I could repurpose some SSD's for a cache drive.

The built in Marvell SAS controller doesn't seem good, practically no driver support.
 
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