Hello all,

I have a domestic personal PC in a Tower case that has two Adaptec 7805T
controllers. These controllers can work with either SATA or SAS drives.

I currently use SATA drives on the Adaptec 7805 cards and this is being
used as a NAS.

I've seen a cheap deal for some SAS drives that are bigger in capacity
and faster than the current SATA drives

I understand that SATA drives have 2 seperate connectors for power and
data whereas on SAS drives they are one physical connector that carries
both power and data.

Now the Adaptec cards clearly only have data connecotrs. Typically SAS
drives are used with a SAS backplane in enterprise grade servers.

So can I get away with SAS breakout cables like these in order to use my
exisiting case and Adaptec 7805 cards with SAS drives or am I
overlooking something?

Sometrhing like this:

https://www.newegg.com/3ware-cbl-sas8087ocf-06m/p/N82E16816116091

(there are reports of SAS drives not being recognised consistently where
an alternative method is used to a SAS backplane)

Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
support SAS drives properly.

> I've seen a cheap deal for some SAS drives that are bigger in capacity
> and faster than the current SATA drives

> Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
> support SAS drives properly.

I don't know the answer to your question, but is it possible the
awkwardness of using these drives explains their cheapness?

On 17/08/2022 10:59, GB wrote:
>
>> I've seen a cheap deal for some SAS drives that are bigger in capacity
>> and faster than the current SATA drives
>
>> Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
>> support SAS drives properly.
>
>
> I don't know the answer to your question, but is it possible the
> awkwardness of using these drives explains their cheapness?
>
>
>
>

I had wondered about that....

after a bit of digging around, it would appear that SAS backplane cages
are available......

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143564355591?epid=151946973&hash=item216d1a3807:g:H0MAAOSwA6ViwfgB&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoONKWb7RLoPO86G%2B2Lg1rbhS6bAuaLh8LZmOkQsTm43u7Nq86qjShvVxH7xJCgUwbrq5pIN9JFL52LG%2Bcx9YpNDoJhd2COMUFIOiqoCFk0DIqsKc%2B%2BZ7SPfOtrom2TuohRxuZ2Ug0skOuVGE95CF9%2BQ8AKB00zAi0T43Dz1YvCE3r3x8ZlB%2FnH2rpewsTUX0iTWOMdVpOEuesOgaL%2BumTIA%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_TNrL3VYA

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354092678212?epid=28025326008&hash=item5271917c44:g:kBQAAOSw9DRimfbe&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoNzljaD6%2FrDO97ABqT05UK68tFXbQiUalw2M%2BbMRNUNP9k110nc1CLtow9FG8AIIJzS7HRQ6PxVOilXlgqter95n8jA1xoFgOEViDqdfr3MkdfaLSMuZ%2BGpomMj%2BQ6fpoYDDNCfcBugosxXFdYruIQ5lRUvuaONtBpjuawi5ctCz3HNe8yzqZ1mz%2BRcklgaY7V2kfdhhu%2F3IcKKnlzi%2BahU%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-yZiLPVYA

Some of these cages are for LFF SAS drives, some are for SFF SAS drives
and they seem to be able to hold either 4 or 8 drives....

My Tower case has 6 removable blanking plates for up to 6 5.25 inch
drives (like CD rom /DVD rom) so I wonder if one of these SAS backplane
cages could fit?

S.

On 17/08/2022 10:24, SH wrote:
>
> Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
> support SAS drives properly.
>

AN old G7 Microserver? I'm seeing them parted out for their backplanes.

HP Proliant Microserver Gen 7 Backplane Mini SAS SFF-8087 to SATA / SAS
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304564660421

The cabling is SAS, however the on-motherboard controller is not. That
can be fixed by adding a SAS controller. They are cheap (some below
£20!) and currently I'm searching recommendations.

The board end connector on the cable is "SFF-8087" and for me this looks
a candidate (from https://n40l.fandom.com/wiki/Raid)

HP Smart Array P212 ZM

I have a stack of 3.5" SAS drives acquired after completing buy-it-now
on ebay, and then finding my foot in my mouth - I actually needed 2.5"

So mine will be a box to totally backup my QNAP NAS, which did not amuse
me last week when after restarting it, it decided to unlink the home
directory for all authenticated users. This causing me to imagine the
worse for most of my profile held stuff. It didn't help, that I was
dealing with a disk failure and rebuilding the new drive at the same time.

--
Adrian C

On 17/08/2022 15:50, Adrian Caspersz wrote:
> On 17/08/2022 10:24, SH wrote:
>>
>> Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
>> support SAS drives properly.
>>
>
> AN old G7 Microserver? I'm seeing them parted out for their backplanes.
>
> HP Proliant Microserver Gen 7 Backplane Mini SAS SFF-8087 to SATA / SAS
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304564660421
>
> The cabling is SAS, however the on-motherboard controller is not. That
> can be fixed by adding a SAS controller. They are cheap (some below
> £20!) and currently I'm searching recommendations.
>
> The board end connector on the cable is "SFF-8087" and for me this looks
> a candidate (from https://n40l.fandom.com/wiki/Raid)
>
> HP Smart Array P212 ZM
>
> I have a stack of 3.5" SAS drives acquired after completing buy-it-now
> on ebay, and then finding my foot in my mouth - I actually needed 2.5"
>
> So mine will be a box to totally backup my QNAP NAS, which did not amuse
> me last week when after restarting it, it decided to unlink the home
> directory for all authenticated users. This causing me to imagine the
> worse for most of my profile held stuff. It didn't help, that I was
> dealing with a disk failure and rebuilding the new drive at the same time.
>

These are the two controllers I have:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=asr+7805&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=1

On 17/08/2022 10:24, SH wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a domestic personal PC in a Tower case that has two Adaptec
> 7805T controllers. These controllers can work with either SATA or SAS
> drives.
>
> I currently use SATA drives on the Adaptec 7805 cards and this is
> being used as a NAS.
>
> I've seen a cheap deal for some SAS drives that are bigger in capacity
> and faster than the current SATA drives
>
> I understand that SATA drives have 2 seperate connectors for power and
> data whereas on SAS drives they are one physical connector that
> carries both power and data.
>
> Now the Adaptec cards clearly only have data connecotrs. Typically SAS
> drives are used with a SAS backplane in enterprise grade servers.
>
> So can I get away with SAS breakout cables like these in order to use
> my exisiting case and Adaptec 7805 cards with SAS drives or am I
> overlooking something?
>
> Sometrhing like this:
>
> https://www.newegg.com/3ware-cbl-sas8087ocf-06m/p/N82E16816116091
>
> (there are reports of SAS drives not being recognised consistently
> where an alternative method is used to a SAS backplane)
>
> Otherwise I will have to invest in a enterprise grade server case to
> support SAS drives properly.
>
I do not if this helps, I strip SAS controllors from dell workstations
and sell them on E bay.

This is what with 12GB/s speed ones look like and have cables for, hope
it helps.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304567582990