this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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68
Mistakenly bought a SAS Drive (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by Valmond@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello,

Bought a spare super cheap used 3TB drive a year ago, and just figured out it's not a SATA but a SAS drive.

How fucked am I? What can I do more than using it as a paperweight?

Cheers!

all 42 comments
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[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This is all assuming it's a spinning disk and not an SSD, so ignore me if that's the case:

Given SAS drives are usually used in data centre storage array applications and 3TB disks have been kinda small for that use case for a fair while, there's a fairly high chance it was in heavy use for a good number of years. I'd bet it's probably well on its way to being a paperweight regardless of your connectivity situation.

If you do get it hooked up, don't store anything on it you wouldn't be okay losing.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yep spinning rust.

Wanted a scratch disk to aggregate all my sensitive information thats scattered and duplicated on smaller disks and thumb drives. Would probably keep it as an ultimate backup too (I got a real backup).

My thinking was that usually those disks are swapped out after 5 years when failure rates starts to creep up, but there's still is some life left, largely enough for some fun.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

SMART will tell you how many hours it's been running

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

If I get it up and running ^^ !

[–] tedvdb@feddit.nl 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yust buy a SAS controller (with cables), they are used pretty cheap.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] NaibofTabr 13 points 10 months ago

You can get a SAS USB external enclosure but they're in the $100 range, probably not worth it for 3TB.

For internal use, you can get a used PCIe SAS Host Bus Adapter fairly cheap BUT you need to do some research. Before you buy one you should confirm that there is a driver for the OS that you are using and that it is supported on your processor/socket/chipset. These cards are server hardware - many of them are not supported by Windows and/or are not compatible with consumer motherboards & CPUs.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Buy a cheap (used?) SAS controller. No big deal.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Congrats on the new paper weight!

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Ha ha thanks I guess 😁

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The search brings up these scary words. It says you are 100% fucked.

At the same time, I see those cheap ass converters on Amazon >.> I have never tried one.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can adapt SATA drives to an SAS controller, but you cannot adapt SAS drives to a SATA controller.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm gonna put my chips on the side of "these 8 dollar converters won't work"

But maybe OP is brave idk

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Ya maybe I'll sit this one out 😁

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thanks! Yeah looks like it's only the other way around.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Just sell it on or cancel.

[–] Toes@ani.social 5 points 10 months ago

You can get a used sas controller for cheap in most cases. Or try your luck with the generic stuff on Amazon.

[–] GeorgimusPrime@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've seen SAS-SATA adapters for sale online. I got a 120GB used SAS, and it's cheaper to buy another drive than to order the adapter.

[–] Anivia@feddit.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Those adapters only work for plugging SATA drives into SAS controllers. You can't use an adapter to plug a SAS drive into a SATA port

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well sometimes it can, it seems.

I'll try to be back and tell :-)

[–] Anivia@feddit.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, they can't. You need a SAS controller for a SAS drive, there is no way around it

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Check out y0dins post below, there are SAS drives with SATA compatibility it seems.

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Haven't tried it myself, but there is cheap converters available on AliExpress:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EwYtdeV

Might be worth it to avoid using it as a paperweight?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The link in Sanctus post says its SAS to SATA but the other way around doesn't work for cheap converters 😞

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

sorry if I misunderstood, but wasn't his drive sas, and he needed to go to sata connections? this does that.

sas hdd => sata controller connetions

the converter is not the culprit, the drive needs a sata logo on the label for it to work the other way, which is mentioned on the sales page.

if the drive had that logo or not is not mentioned as far as I can see

(edit, thought it was OP replying at first, so changed that, and added requirements for the adapter)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's exactly what I'd like to find, but you cannot, it seems, connect a SAS disk to a SATA slot on the mobo, only the other way around, with this adapter.

The comments also seems to say exactly that (you have to put 4 or 5 stars to comment, so that's a useless measure, gotta read those translated comments).

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

you can, if you read my edited post, as long as the SATA logo is present on the label of the sas drive

as mentioned in the description of the product

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Thank you!

Mine is suspiciously looking like yours 😁 but Dell, and without the sticker...

Is it just a Dell rebranded Seagate? I mean Dell doesn't make drives right? And the serial takes me right to segate drives who are compatible s-ata.

Guess I'll gamble a couple of € to see 😁

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Dell drives are rebranded Seagates, however the firmware is slightly modified so the bios recognizes it as a Dell branded drive. Openmanage will throw an error if you use a different drive (though aside from that everything will work fine)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks! Crossing my fingers 😁

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

No worries, however I cannot see the SATA marking on yours, just the SAS, or perhaps I am blind, changed contact model today..but please double check before ordering.

And yes, Dell does not manufacture hard drives, so it's almost 100% a OEM rebranding.

if however, it is this drive it should support SATA

https://www.minitool.com/backup-tips/sas-hard-drive.html?amp

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'll get the converter, I'll let you know how it pans out, and a huge thank you!!

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

no worries! 🙂

crossing my fingers for you while we wait 😄

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Ha ha thanks!

[–] y0din@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

there is cheap controllers as well btw:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_ExfUSap

lots of cheap electronics for all your needs over there :)

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Ha ha yes my home is filled with unsuspectedly good stuff from aliexpress 😅

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What you do is to look on the local used hardware sites, search for server, fet a cheap one with SAS interfaces, and now you have the start of a homelab.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good idea, but what am I going to do with my thinkcentres 😁

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Use them as clients in your homelab?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Connot have too many computers!