SAS Troubles...

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joe7dust

Limp Gawd
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I have a SAS drive that I am trying to get data off of. It is a STS373454SS.

I purchased this cable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200431

I bought an identical drive as well to do a circuit board swap. I can't get this drive to spin at all. I've tried 2 molex power adapters, 2 different circuit boards. In fact the donor drive that I bought for parts wouldn't even spin up. I'm actually thinking maybe this cable I bought is bad, but then I read somewhere you need a SAS controller on your system for this stuff. But that doesn't explain why the drive doesn't spin at all so I'm kinda confused... Any advice here would be great, as I have pretty much zero experience with SAS in general.

I even tried cutting the plastic between data connector and power connector with a dremmel and then connecting a regular SATA adapter to it. Same thing, no power. On a side note related to this, where do the extra pins on the SAS connector go? I see there's 7 extra pins in the middle between data/power connections that don't appear to lead anywhere at all, but why did they bother to waste gold like that? It's also strange they are located on the opposite side of the connector from the others.
 
What are you using in order to connect the cable?

That cable won't work with any motherboard SATA ports, you need to use it with a SAS compatible controller card.

So you probably need to buy a SAS card to get it to work.
 
You need a SAS HBA. SATA will not work. The extra 7 pins are the for second port which you can ignore. The disk also isn't going to spin up until said SAS HBA issues a command to tell it to.
 
Blue Fox said:
The extra 7 pins are the for second port which you can ignore. The disk also isn't going to spin up until said SAS HBA issues a command to tell it to.
Click to expand...
Thanks for answering! Can you elaborate on that?

I definitely detroyed the first circuit board with the dremel then. (well without soldering.)

@staticlag Thanks, will do!

Side Curiosity: What data is stored on the circuit board, if any? I would assume this is where things like # of drive hours resides?
 
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Most SAS drives have 2 ports. That just happens to be the secondary one. SAS allows for multipathing for redundancy and extra throughput. You do not need to use the second port (you can actually use it instead of the primary if you want though). Circuit board doesn't contain any data that you would have stored on it. Just the drive firmware, a few monitoring things, and so on.
 
The cable might work, but you still need a SAS card to get the drive going at all. Forget about the cable until you actually have a card that will work. SATA cards will not work.

I fact no, that cable looks like it would be no use to you for a single drive.
 
bootc said:
The cable might work, but you still need a SAS card to get the drive going at all. Forget about the cable until you actually have a card that will work. SATA cards will not work.

I fact no, that cable looks like it would be no use to you for a single drive.
Click to expand...

bootc is correct.

The SAS controller tells the drives when to start spinning up. This is so that you can stagger the spinup times in order to reduce the load on the PSU. (Imagine the load of 36+ drives in a server all spinning up at the same time)
 
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joe7dust said:
OK thanks for the help guys! I think I'll be getting http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Smart-Ar...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item20ced4faf4 since I heard this model mentioned by another HF member on another thread. He was having throughput issues with it but I don't care about the speed.

edit: it also looks like I'll need a special cable to connector the 2, but I don't know what it's called. Here's a pic http://imgur.com/lR9hy3K Left: SAS Controller Card, Right: HDD Circuit board
Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but I do not believe the controller you listed is going to work. I believe the controller you listed works in tandem with the motherboard in the server. Basically the motherboard will have the SAS connectors but uses a PCIe based controller instead of a motherboard integrated controller. This is common practice.

Anyways, this setup would work for you:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ServeRa...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item1c2ed0588b
+
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-INTEL-L...t=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item46096602b6


EDIT: After further investigating the card you listed, the connector at the end is for a battery pack. http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-SMART-AR...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item5d396614a9

It appears there are connectors on the backside that connect to a backplane in the server chassis. Here is the cable: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-SAS-Cabl...764?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23278043dc

Here is a listing with all the components you would need: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Smart-Ar...sk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item4d08c7bcac

Another words, just get a SAS card that uses a standard 8087 Breakout cable.
 
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Thanks for all the text/links, but I am confused. You said the P400 would not work for me, then you said to get a listing including it. It also seems weird that before your edit you suggested $45 worth of stuff, but then now I can accomplish everything with a $14 listing.

If I get that $14 one, will I need any other adapters such as this http://click.hardforum.com/?url=htt...431&id=1&match=1&source=none&destination=none ? If not, I suppose I can return that. It was a little pricy for what it is ($12).
 
If you already have data on the drive, I wouldn't go for a RAID controller of any sort as they will want to put their own signatures on the drive before they let you use it.

HP cards, especially, can be difficult to get working at all in non-HP motherboards, just to add to the pain.

You probably want something as simple as an IBM M1015 flashed to I/T firmware combined with a SFF-8087 *forward* breakout cable, or even better a SFF-8087/SFF-8482 cable which will deal with power as well and means you won't have to dremel your good drive.
 
joe7dust said:
So just to be sure I get the right thing, http://click.hardforum.com/?url=htt...cac&id=1&match=1&source=none&destination=none will have all the stuff I need including adapters/cables? I'm just trying to access a SAS drive via consumer desktop running Windows. I doubt I am the first to ever ask, and surprised there isn't a USB adapter available.
Click to expand...

If you notice in that link, it includes the controller, the backplane and the Controller to Backplane cables.
If you also notice, it comes with a short cable that I assume connects the backplane to a power source in order to power the drives.

Does your desktop PSU include a connector for that? Nope.

Quit trying to be a cheap ass. You have already admitted to wasting money buying parts and drives trying to recover the data because you did not know what you were doing. Take our advice, buy a IBM M1015 or IBM BR10i, flash it to IT mode firmware and buy the proper 8087 cable.

The more you try to ghetto rig shit, the more money and time you are going to waste.
 
All I did was link your item you suggested. I can't tell from your post whether you are retracting your recommendation or not. Can you clear that up a bit? I just want a link to an item or several items that will include everything I need. Obviously I'm not being cheap if I did a risky procedure on that first circuit board. I never could tell whether those 7 pins will matter either. His reply said something about "The extra 7 pins are the for second port which you can ignore" which sounds like the first circuit board I dremeled might still be ok.
 
joe7dust said:
All I did was link your item you suggested. I can't tell from your post whether you are retracting your recommendation or not. Can you clear that up a bit? I just want a link to an item or several items that will include everything I need. Obviously I'm not being cheap if I did a risky procedure on that first circuit board. I never could tell whether those 7 pins will matter either. His reply said something about "The extra 7 pins are the for second port which you can ignore" which sounds like the first circuit board I dremeled might still be ok.
Click to expand...

I am not retracting anything. The "kit" listed on ebay with the controller, backplane and cables should be everything you need.

You still will need to figure out how to power the backplane. You could probably splice some wires and ghetto rig some shit... OR you could get the proven IBM card + 8087 cables like other people have already recommended to you.

Your choice.
 
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Why does the button say "edit/delete" but then it's impossible to delete? -.-
 
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well you knew I was a noob. Thanks for clearing everything up. Once you toned back the random rage a bit, you were coherent.

leeleatherwood said:
I am not retracting anything. The "kit" listed on ebay with the controller, backplane and cables should be everything you need.

You still will need to figure out how to power the backplane. You could probably splice some wires and ghetto rig some shit... OR you could get the proven IBM card + 8087 cables like other people have already recommended to you.

Your choice, i am done trying to help idiots who don't take advice.
Click to expand...

Where am I "not taking advice" ?? Not sure why you bothered to post at all if you didn't want to help honestly. 2 people recommended different products so I asked for clarification. Are you mad that I didn't just buy both? You still haven't made it clear whether your own recommendation or his is better, but you did instantly flame me for not taking HIS suggestion over yours which is very strange. Also you recommended a $14 listing that has like 4 separate items, then accuse me of being "cheap" ? That listing is cheap.

Take our advice, buy a IBM M1015 or IBM BR10i, flash it to IT mode firmware and buy the proper 8087 cable.
Click to expand...

@bootc
bootc said:
If you already have data on the drive, I wouldn't go for a RAID controller of any sort as they will want to put their own signatures on the drive before they let you use it.

HP cards, especially, can be difficult to get working at all in non-HP motherboards, just to add to the pain.

You probably want something as simple as an IBM M1015 flashed to I/T firmware combined with a SFF-8087 *forward* breakout cable, or even better a SFF-8087/SFF-8482 cable which will deal with power as well and means you won't have to dremel your good drive.
Click to expand...

I can't afford the M1015 ($85) but the BR10i ($34) is within budget. What is the difference? How would I go about avoiding the RAID controller writing to the drive before I can access it? It's just a single drive. What are your thoughts on this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Smart-Ar...001-8-SAS-Backplane-412736-001-/230919510333?
 
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Sorry to be a pest but I would really like to order something this afternoon if anyone here can help me out. The owner of the SAS drive is expecting it back 3 days ago... fortunately he hasn't called about it so doesn't even know the connector I ordered is the wrong one, but that will soon change I'm sure.
 
buy a IBM M1015 or IBM BR10i, flash it to IT mode firmware and buy the proper 8087 cable.
Click to expand...

Seems pretty straight forward, for the one you linked (http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Smart-Ar...-001-8-SAS-Backplane-412736-001-/230919510333) is there an IT mode firmware for it?

I'm not able to understand what was recommended or why, it may be a good idea to read more into this stuff on your own so you understand it better.

It sounds like you are trying to recover data, have your tried any of those $300 data-recovery places? They can do basically anything just short of opening the drive.
 
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lilfiend said:
Seems pretty straight forward, for the one you linked (http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Smart-Ar...-001-8-SAS-Backplane-412736-001-/230919510333) is there an IT mode firmware for it?

I'm not able to understand what was recommended or why, it may be a good idea to read more into this stuff on your own so you understand it better.

It sounds like you are trying to recover data, have your tried any of those $300 data-recovery places? They can do basically anything just short of opening the drive.
Click to expand...
No I'm doing it for $50. I don't know if there is an IT-mode for it or not.. Is that what you need for recovery because it doesn't write the RAID stuff to the disk?
 
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You cannot use an HP P-series card for what you're trying to do. They offer no passthrough mode, only RAID mode. No there is no IT mode firmware for HP raid controllers and even if there were flashing HP hardware with non-HP motherboards is not trivial.

You need something like an IBM M1015 which has already been mentioned.
 
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The BR10i should work, the DELL SAS6i should work as well (and are pretty cheap, roughly 20 bucks shipped, perhaps less), both are based on the LSI 1068e chipset and are known to be able to accept the most recent firmware from LSI which is intended for similar cards sold by LSI directly. Depending on which card you get you will need a different adapter cable, but cables which directly interface the SFF-8484 or SFF-8087 which are found on the cards to SFF-8482 (connector on the drive) are available, some take power from a molex connector while others have a sata power port on the back of the drive end.

Let us know what you decide on and we might be able to help you from there (such as helping with the crossflash, or at least pointing you in the right direction)
 
Dalfo002 said:
The BR10i should work, the DELL SAS6i should work as well (and are pretty cheap, roughly 20 bucks shipped, perhaps less), both are based on the LSI 1068e chipset and are known to be able to accept the most recent firmware from LSI which is intended for similar cards sold by LSI directly. Depending on which card you get you will need a different adapter cable, but cables which directly interface the SFF-8484 or SFF-8087 which are found on the cards to SFF-8482 (connector on the drive) are available, some take power from a molex connector while others have a sata power port on the back of the drive end.

Let us know what you decide on and we might be able to help you from there (such as helping with the crossflash, or at least pointing you in the right direction)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the infomative reply. It is refreshing to see a helpful post here that isn't full of highschooler-like random rage, insults and unfounded accusations.

I did not see any for $20 but it does look like I could save $9 getting the SAS6i instead of BR10i
As long as I'm not losing anything getting the cheaper card I'm fine with that.

Can you help me find the right cable? I already bought 1 incorrect cable and can't find documentation on whether this card has 8484 or 8087 connector. Again, I'm just trying to hook up a SAS drive to a Windows Desktop something which I am sure I am not the first to want.

edit: just saw your comment on another post, I guess reply there since this thread has a lot of useless BS in it. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039564006&posted=1#post1039564006
 
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