So is it true you can plug SATA drives into SAS connectors?

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jordan12

[H]F Junkie
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I always thought you needed adapters for this type of functionality. Am I wrong?
 
You can physically plug in a SATA drive into a SAS connector, but not vice versa.

I think it depends on the controller if the drive will work. I'm used to using LSI HBAs like the 9211-8i and they work with either SATA or SAS.

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To add to this, just re LSI HBAs (not SAS use per se), SSD TRIM isn't supported on them if the drive lacks support for DRAT/RZAT. (That's a lot of acronyms I know :p). Only mentioning since it doesn't get enough coverage imo.

This is problematic for most consumer SSDs (which lack that) since they won't properly delete files off the drive otherwise. There are some exceptions among consumer drives though like Samsung 860 EVO (and onward) which support DRAT/RZAT.

One other gotcha seems to be if using UnRaid, since certain LSI firmware (P20) and UnRaid driver combos fail to apply TRIM even if they're DRAT/RZAT compatible (see here). Users there had to downgrade the LSI firmware to get it to work with the latest drivers (see some summaries on page 4).
 
Okatis said:
To add to this, just re LSI HBAs (not SAS use per se), SSD TRIM isn't supported on them if the drive lacks support for DRAT/RZAT. (That's a lot of acronyms I know :p). Only mentioning since it doesn't get enough coverage imo.

This is problematic for most consumer SSDs (which lack that) since they won't properly delete files off the drive otherwise. There are some exceptions among consumer drives though like Samsung 860 EVO (and onward) which support DRAT/RZAT.

One other gotcha seems to be if using UnRaid, since certain LSI firmware (P20) and UnRaid driver combos fail to apply TRIM even if they're DRAT/RZAT compatible (see here). Users there had to downgrade the LSI firmware to get it to work with the latest drivers (see some summaries on page 4).
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Many of the newer LSI controllers do support trim etc. but yes the more common older chipsets do not and that really isn’t mentioned enough. A ssd will work for those but won’t perform too well and likely would die prematurely.

I don’t have the chipsets memorized but a quick search found multiple threads on Reddit that showed what LSI models used which chipsets.

The tried and true LSI 9211-8i flashed to IT mode (it’s a pcie gen 2x8 card) has worked well, is well supported and usually available cheaply.
 
jordan12 said:
Was looking at something like this to get away from my proprietary NAS software. But I do not think that this is even an actual PC.
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I could easily be wrong, but I'd assume a Netapp Disk Shelf is going to work with a Netapp Filer and that's it. If you want that many disks, I'd look for something supermicro, maybe hp/dell. They do make some with just a backplane and no server board, so don't buy that unless that's what you want.
 
toast0 said:
I could easily be wrong, but I'd assume a Netapp Disk Shelf is going to work with a Netapp Filer and that's it. If you want that many disks, I'd look for something supermicro, maybe hp/dell. They do make some with just a backplane and no server board, so don't buy that unless that's what you want.
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Well, it really depends on which disk shelf and which filer you are talking about as to whether they would be compatible (more from a licensing standpoint than a PHY.)
 
jordan12 said:
Was looking at something like this to get away from my proprietary NAS software. But I do not think that this is even an actual PC.
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that's not a PC it's just an expander, if you attach that to a computer via a SAS cable it basically just takes the 4 SAS lanes from your controller and turns them into 24...

I use those exact shelves with my lenovo servers... pop in a dell perc h830 card, attach the shelf via a SFF-8644 to QSFP(SFF-8436) cable, works great... you can attach 2 shelves per card, you can in theory daisy chain shelves but I haven't tried it
 
FLECOM said:
that's not a PC it's just an expander, if you attach that to a computer via a SAS cable it basically just takes the 4 SAS lanes from your controller and turns them into 24...

I use those exact shelves with my lenovo servers... pop in a dell perc h830 card, attach the shelf via a SFF-8644 to QSFP(SFF-8436) cable, works great... you can attach 2 shelves per card, you can in theory daisy chain shelves but I haven't tried it
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So I could build a PC, plug this device in via an SAS cable, (assume I need an SAS controller card in the PC), and my machine would see all 24 drives? Or am I over simplifying it?
 
jordan12 said:
So I could build a PC, plug this device in via an SAS cable, (assume I need an SAS controller card in the PC), and my machine would see all 24 drives? Or am I over simplifying it?
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Yes that’s essentially how it works. You’d need the hba card with the appropriate port and connector. There is a detailed post on this thread that talks about the connector types. You’d buy a card based on the connectivity you’d need. Also you’d need said card to be flashed into IT mode instead of raid.
 
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