SAS to SATA?

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cam966251

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Hi, I have a pretty easy question, but i'm a little confused. I understand that basically SAS is full-duplex SATA, and it's a different connector. My question is, I have an SAS drive, can I buy one of those cables that connects to the SAS drive, and on the other end, it's a molex cable, and two normal SATA connections, and just plug both of them into the standard SATA connections I have on my consumer level motherboard?

I'm not sure if this works or not, or how this would show up in the BIOS?

Thanks
 
You still have to have a SAS controller on your mobo, a lot of the X58 boards came with them, they are limited to two ports

The cable is compatible with both SAS/SATA. I use them on my SSD's since they are easier to plugin.

IIRC the double "sata" connector is for a dual controller SAS drive. only one should need to be plugged in. I could be off base on this part though.
 
You cannot plug a SAS drive into a SATA controller and have it work. You can get cables to physically attach the drive, but it will not work. SAS is not simply full duplex SATA.
 
I'm not sure if my motherboard supports SAS. My motherboard has the P965 chipset, and there are 6 SATA connections

4 of the connections are controlled by the Intel ICH8R sotuhbridge
2 of the connections are controlled by the JMicron JMB363

@pjkenned - Is there anyway these controllers support SAS?
 
Last edited:
lockheed2266 said:
I'm not sure if my motherboard supports SAS. My motherboard has the P965 chipset, and there are 6 SATA connections

4 of the connections are controlled by the Intel ICH8R sotuhbridge
2 of the connections are controlled by the JMicron JMB363

@pjkenned - Is there anyway these controllers support SAS?
Click to expand...

Neither of those will support SAS
 
lockheed2266 said:
Hi, I have a pretty easy question, but i'm a little confused. I understand that basically SAS is full-duplex SATA
Click to expand...

No. SAS = SCSI command set. SATA = ATA commandset. As already mentioned your SAS drive won't talk to your mobo's SATA controller which only knows ATA. A SAS controller "speaks" both languages (or rather, tunnels ATA over SCSI), but a SATA controller can't tunnel SCSI over ATA.

You can get a SAS controller for $50 on ebay if you look around - don't get too hung up on the mobo having one.
 
odditory said:
No. SAS = SCSI command set. SATA = ATA commandset. As already mentioned your SAS drive won't talk to your mobo's SATA controller which only knows ATA. A SAS controller "speaks" both languages (or rather, tunnels ATA over SCSI), but a SATA controller can't tunnel SCSI over ATA.

You can get a SAS controller for $50 on ebay if you look around - don't get too hung up on the mobo having one.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the input, it was very helpful.

I'll look around for a cheap controller.
 
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