Drive Replacement

[Etorix]

SAS drives generally cost more than their SATA counterparts, have poor SATA reporting and require a SAS HBA.
SAS backplanes and expanders are certainly useful, but I struggle to see any benefit of SAS for the hard drives themselves.

 

[Fastline]

SAS drives generally cost more than their SATA counterparts, have poor SATA reporting and require a SAS HBA.

I agree. A friend who is retiring his Homelab, is giving me some 10TB SAS Drives. I asked for health report and yes, the programs just do not display any power on time and amount of write. Although, it was connected individually in a Dell Server. So, how can i obtain this info?

Secondly, should i really not consider using a SAS Drive? I mean i don't have a server or chassis with backplanes but a tower server with HBA Card. Would it be safe to buy them? I have never used a SAS drive before.

I saw that SFF8643 to SAS Cables are available like the below.

Does it work fine or has some caveats?

SAS backplanes and expanders are certainly useful, but I struggle to see any benefit of SAS for the hard drives themselves.

Well, there is definitely struggle. I never understood if the drive cannot reach up to 600MB/s why there is 6Gb/s and what benefit a SAS 12Gb/s can offer when both will run at same speeds. Of course, new drives can take advantage like 2X18 from Seagate that drive is quite good for 6Gb/s.

 

[danb35]

Secondly, should i really not consider using a SAS Drive? I mean i don't have a server or chassis with backplanes but a tower server with HBA Card. Would it be safe to buy them? I have never used a SAS drive before.

If someone's giving them to you, there's no real reason not to use SAS--there just isn't any real reason to favor it over SATA, and if buying new, they're considerably more expensive. At one point, there were higher speed (10k RPM, and even 15k) SAS drives available (e.g., https://www.ebay.com/itm/394864744845), particularly in smaller capacities, but these have been overtaken by SSDs.

 

[Etorix]

Secondly, should i really not consider using a SAS Drive?

Oh, if you have the SAS drives, or can have them for a better price than SATA drives, go for SAS.

Does it work fine or has some caveats?

No caveats.

Well, there is definitely struggle. I never understood if the drive cannot reach up to 600MB/s why there is 6Gb/s and what benefit a SAS 12Gb/s can offer when both will run at same speeds. Of course, new drives can take advantage like 2X18 from Seagate that drive is quite good for 6Gb/s.

6 Gb/s (SATA III, SAS 2), or 12 Gb/s (SAS 3) is the bandwidth available to the interface.
A SSD may be able to make full use of it, but no spinning drive may come close to that (except maybe for a small burst to or from the cache).
SATA is a direct link: controller-cable-drive. SATA III is totally wasted on HDDs, which are just as fine on 3 Gb/s SATA II.
SAS allows for more complex, and branched topologies: The controller may be linked to an expander which then is linked to several drives… or even to a second expander. In this configuration, more bandwidth may be useful because traffic for many drives is going through a single cable.

 

[Fastline]

If someone's giving them to you, there's no real reason not to use SAS--there just isn't any real reason to favor it over SATA, and if buying new, they're considerably more expensive. At one point, there were higher speed (10k RPM, and even 15k) SAS drives available (e.g., https://www.ebay.com/itm/394864744845), particularly in smaller capacities, but these have been overtaken by SSDs.

I got your point!

It's Seagate EXOS X10 10TB 7200RPM.

 

[Fastline]

Oh, if you have the SAS drives, or can have them for a better price than SATA drives, go for SAS.

Yes, my friend is giving it to me. He has like bunch of them and we both are upgrading our NAS this year.

Just not sure if this will do the job. I'm having LSI 9400-16i

If there's any better cable/adapter/converter, let me know please.

6 Gb/s (SATA III, SAS 2), or 12 Gb/s (SAS 3) is the bandwidth available to the interface.
A SSD may be able to make full use of it, but no spinning drive may come close to that (except maybe for a small burst to or from the cache).
SATA is a direct link: controller-cable-drive. SATA III is totally wasted on HDDs, which are just as fine on 3 Gb/s SATA II.
SAS allows for more complex, and branched topologies: The controller may be linked to an expander which then is linked to several drives… or even to a second expander. In this configuration, more bandwidth may be useful because traffic for many drives is going through a single cable.

Now i get your point totally. Thanks for clearing it up!

Also, is there any way i can grab the info like total power on time, start/stop count and amount of writes? As mentioned, i checked using HD Sentinel but it didn't display any of such information except for the health and performance and few SMART attributes. The drives were installed on a Dell server which had backplane. Or it could be that HD Sentinel does not support reading SMART data from backplanes?

 

[Etorix]

If your HBA has SFF-8643 connectors these are the right cables.

 

[Fastline]

If your HBA has SFF-8643 connectors these are the right cables.

Yay. Any trusted source/brand you would recommend to get these cables please? I have never used a SAS Drive before so no idea about it.

Also, i checked your signature and found that you're using Node 804. Can you share the drive setup pictures? Having that case and no idea how you can fit 11 drives.

Thanks again!

 

[Davvo]

Having that case and no idea how you can fit 11 drives.

Eight in two rows of four in the PSU compartment, two on the floor of the motherboard compartment (plus two 2.5'' slots behind the front panel).
Plus another optional 3.5'' slot on the base of the PSU compartment iirc.

 

[Fastline]

Eight in two rows of four in the PSU compartment, two on the floor of the motherboard compartment (plus two 2.5'' slots behind the front panel).
Plus another optional 3.5'' slot on the base of the PSU compartment iirc.

Ouch. How could i miss that!

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. You guys are awesome. Can you recommend me some brand/source to get SFF8643 to SAS Cables?

Thanks

 

[Davvo]

Can you recommend me some brand/source to get SFF8643 to SAS Cables?

Amazon.

 

[Fastline]

Amazon.

Possible to suggest one with the link with your expertise?

 

[Davvo]

Possible to suggest one with the link with your expertise?

I use their SATA cables, no issues so far.

https://www.amazon.com/CableDeconn-SFF-8643-Internal-connectors-H0204/dp/B07B9SBSVW

 

[Fastline]

I use their SATA cables, no issues so far.

https://www.amazon.com/CableDeconn-SFF-8643-Internal-connectors-H0204/dp/B07B9SBSVW

Thank you so much for the help!

 

[Etorix]

Yay. Any trusted source/brand you would recommend to get these cables please? I have never used a SAS Drive before so no idea about it.

Cables are cables, so no magic here. Chinese sellers on eBay/AliExpress, your local IT retailer, Amazon/NewEgg, anything goes.
For SATA, you'd want the shorter variety to be on the safe side. For SAS, length is just a matter of cable management within the case.

Also, i checked your signature and found that you're using Node 804. Can you share the drive setup pictures? Having that case and no idea how you can fit 11 drives.

As @Davvo guessed, 8 in the drive cages, 2 on the floor of the motherboard chamber (so far, as designed), and the 11th drive, to bump it to Z3, lies upside down on the floor of the drive/PSU chamber, tightly squeezed between the PSU and a 15 mm thick fan, and "secured" by a patch of Blu-Tack. Unprofessional, and unsuitable for shipping. Good enough for occasionally moving the NAS within the room.

 

[Fastline]

Cables are cables, so no magic here. Chinese sellers on eBay/AliExpress, your local IT retailer, Amazon/NewEgg, anything goes.
For SATA, you'd want the shorter variety to be on the safe side. For SAS, length is just a matter of cable management within the case.

Cool. Got it!

As @Davvo guessed, 8 in the drive cages, 2 on the floor of the motherboard chamber (so far, as designed), and the 11th drive, to bump it to Z3, lies upside down on the floor of the drive/PSU chamber, tightly squeezed between the PSU and a 15 mm thick fan, and "secured" by a patch of Blu-Tack. Unprofessional, and unsuitable for shipping. Good enough for occasionally moving the NAS within the room.

Nice, nice.

 

[Fastline]

Guys, i have one more question regarding the drives.

Between 4K and 512, what do you recommended for the maximum performance?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

It does not really make a difference ... you are way overthinking this, IMHO. Most modern high capacity drives are 4k native, anyway.

 

[Fastline]

It does not really make a difference ... you are way overthinking this, IMHO. Most modern high capacity drives are 4k native, anyway.

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure.

 

[Fastline]

Hello @Davvo Do you have any recommendation for a similar SATA Cables like you suggested as above?

https://www.amazon.com/CableDeconn-SFF-8643-Internal-connectors-H0204/dp/B07B9SBSVW

The thing is my old NAS always does CRC thingy after i perform maintenance (such as cleaning). I have used original SATA Cables till now (locked one) which comes with Motherboards. Mostly GIGABYTE. I can confirm its SATA Cable cause once i replaced them with other SATA Cables, the error count did not increase.

If there's any SATA Cable like above, it would be much great.

Thanks again