Are 12GB/s SAS drives backwards compatible w6/GB/s controller?

[zetabax]

Hi there,

I need to purchase some used SAS drives for my MD 1200 and have found that 10Tib 12GB/s SAS drives are more readily available in the used market than 6/GB/s disks.

My question: Since the MD1200 H200 is 6GB/s, if I plug 12GB/s SAS drives in, will the drives down scale to 6 or or will fail to recognize them?

Thanks in advance

 

[Constantin]

Per this post, SAS is backwards compatible, just like SATA, PCIe, USB. In each case, the controller and the device are supposed to shake hands at the highest common speed that extant cabling / connections allows.

 

[zetabax]

Thanks @Constantin

 

[jgreco]

if I plug 12GB/s SAS drives in, will the drives down scale to 6 or or will fail to recognize them?

Yes, it should be fine. In the old days, sometimes there would be a firmware bug or something stupid that might prevent it from actually working, but it is intended that it be able to be compatible and just magically work, at the highest common link speed.