How do you go about connecting them? AFAIK, you can't hang them off a SATA port and there are no USB-to-SAS adapters (which would be the only option to connect one to a Raspberry Pi). Are you adding SAS controllers to the systems in question, and if so, how much is that adding to the cost?
_/_ / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail) (IIGS(
drives
Yes there are: they're all over eBak and Amazon like a rash. eBuyer sells them too.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
you're probably talking SATA, a SAS Adapter sets you back around 500 euros.....
-rasp
The prices I saw at Amazon and eBay seem to range from about GBP 8 to GBP
25 and a little more at Ebuyer, so a lot less than 500 euros. These are all USB3->SATA cables for 2.5"/3.4" disks.For a bit more (though still not nearly 500 euros) you can get a cable that connects 2-3 disks or a unit thats a USB3-connected plastic disk enclosure - think of a single disk 'dock' but with the disk mounted flat rather than on end.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
No, *SAS* = serial attached scsi, which can be made pin compatible to SATA but they are completely different protocols. Not sure what use sas->sata pin adapters are if they don't translate the protocol. Sata->usb is dirt cheap, but look at this typical sas->usb solution:
Not quite, you can connect SATA drives to SAS controllers but not the other way round.
Attaching SATA drives to SAS controllers.
Indeed SAS is only really available if you have a PCIe bus available.
-- Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Ah, right. Thanks.
A few minutes research revels that you cannot connect a SAS drive to a SATA port - although the reverse is possible. To utilise SAS drives you need a driver card in your PC.
I found no USB solutions at all
-- "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift.
SAS != SATA. The OP mentioned using ex-datacenter SAS drives for bulk data storage. Unless you're buying cheap used servers to house them, you're going to have a hard time making use of them. If you know of a cheap way to connect an SAS disk to something other than a server, I'd be interested in hearing about it as it'd be useful at work for testing drives and (in some circumstances) recovering data from them. USB-SATA adapters won't cut it, as while you can plug a SATA drive into an SAS controller, you can't plug an SAS drive into a SATA controller.
_/_ / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail) (IIGS(
You can also buy cheap used interface cards, but yes I use cheap used servers.
-- Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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