Hard drive life expectancy

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 05:00:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

Lucifer Morningstar wrote:

Thank you for that information.

You would be aware that SAS controllers are downward compatible
with SATA. Apple Intel Xserves can be used with SATA or SAS by
using the appropriate caddy. Does the controller recognise the type
of drive and adjust its parameters?
I read reviews on this. I have yet to see a happy
customer, who put a SATA drive on a SAS controller.

*Now* you tell me. I've been running SATA drives off of a pair of SAS
controllers since early 2009 without any issues. I'm aware of at least a
few hundred others who are doing the same thing, according to the forums
at www.avsforum.com.

The speed
is all over the place. I have no idea why people experience
such poor results, when the standards have gone to all that
trouble to make it work with both.

I use 5400 RPM drives, so the speed may be limited by that. I get the
speed that I expect, which is very much what I get from the same model
of drive when it's connected directly to a mobo SATA connector.

So yes, you can connect a SATA drive to a SAS controller.
Will you be happy with the results ? I'm still waiting
for a review that said "it just worked".

Two controllers, a total of 16 drives, and it "just worked".

Each controller has two SAS ports. Each of those ports uses a "SAS to
SATA" breakout cable, giving me 4 SATA ports per SAS port. The cards use
the Marvell 88SE64xx chipset.

Now that you've told me to expect issues, I suppose it'll all crash and
burn in short order. It was perfectly fine when I didn't know.


I'm just going by some things I read in Newegg reviews.

I can only afford SATA kit here, so there isn't much chance
there'll be SAS stuff here, ever :-)

Paul

On Thu, 15 Jun 2017 10:36:29 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 05:00:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

Lucifer Morningstar wrote:

Thank you for that information.

You would be aware that SAS controllers are downward compatible
with SATA. Apple Intel Xserves can be used with SATA or SAS by
using the appropriate caddy. Does the controller recognise the type
of drive and adjust its parameters?
I read reviews on this. I have yet to see a happy
customer, who put a SATA drive on a SAS controller.

*Now* you tell me. I've been running SATA drives off of a pair of SAS
controllers since early 2009 without any issues. I'm aware of at least a
few hundred others who are doing the same thing, according to the forums
at www.avsforum.com.

The speed
is all over the place. I have no idea why people experience
such poor results, when the standards have gone to all that
trouble to make it work with both.

I use 5400 RPM drives, so the speed may be limited by that. I get the
speed that I expect, which is very much what I get from the same model
of drive when it's connected directly to a mobo SATA connector.

So yes, you can connect a SATA drive to a SAS controller.
Will you be happy with the results ? I'm still waiting
for a review that said "it just worked".

Two controllers, a total of 16 drives, and it "just worked".

Each controller has two SAS ports. Each of those ports uses a "SAS to
SATA" breakout cable, giving me 4 SATA ports per SAS port. The cards use
the Marvell 88SE64xx chipset.

Now that you've told me to expect issues, I suppose it'll all crash and
burn in short order. It was perfectly fine when I didn't know.


I'm just going by some things I read in Newegg reviews.

I can only afford SATA kit here, so there isn't much chance
there'll be SAS stuff here, ever :-)

It was the only way I knew to get 8 SATA ports from a single PCIe slot.
All of the other solutions that I looked at only provided, 1, 2, or 4
ports.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jun 2017 10:36:29 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jun 2017 05:00:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

Lucifer Morningstar wrote:

Thank you for that information.

You would be aware that SAS controllers are downward compatible
with SATA. Apple Intel Xserves can be used with SATA or SAS by
using the appropriate caddy. Does the controller recognise the type
of drive and adjust its parameters?
I read reviews on this. I have yet to see a happy
customer, who put a SATA drive on a SAS controller.
*Now* you tell me. I've been running SATA drives off of a pair of SAS
controllers since early 2009 without any issues. I'm aware of at least a
few hundred others who are doing the same thing, according to the forums
at www.avsforum.com.

The speed
is all over the place. I have no idea why people experience
such poor results, when the standards have gone to all that
trouble to make it work with both.
I use 5400 RPM drives, so the speed may be limited by that. I get the
speed that I expect, which is very much what I get from the same model
of drive when it's connected directly to a mobo SATA connector.

So yes, you can connect a SATA drive to a SAS controller.
Will you be happy with the results ? I'm still waiting
for a review that said "it just worked".
Two controllers, a total of 16 drives, and it "just worked".

Each controller has two SAS ports. Each of those ports uses a "SAS to
SATA" breakout cable, giving me 4 SATA ports per SAS port. The cards use
the Marvell 88SE64xx chipset.

Now that you've told me to expect issues, I suppose it'll all crash and
burn in short order. It was perfectly fine when I didn't know.

I'm just going by some things I read in Newegg reviews.

I can only afford SATA kit here, so there isn't much chance
there'll be SAS stuff here, ever :-)

It was the only way I knew to get 8 SATA ports from a single PCIe slot.
All of the other solutions that I looked at only provided, 1, 2, or 4
ports.


Years ago, there was some kind of chip that had eight
ports on it. But I don't know what the interface on
the computer end was for those. Part of the problem with
that product, is the chip itself was priced for usage
on $500 RAID cards. And that made it a non-starter
as an expansion solution for regular (non-RAID) usage.

There is a card now on Newegg, with eight SATA ports. But,
stay away from it. It consists of three chips. A regular
SATA controller chip, plus two port multiplier chips.
And the users aren't too happy with the results. So
it's not like anything has changed. You could spend
$1000 on an Areca card of course. If it had 24 ports,
you'd only be paying... $40 per port.

Nobody seems to be interested in using a PCI Express
switch chip, plus multiple controllers. Although
I have seen such a thing done, for a USB3 card. Usually
when cards like that are done, the manufacturer makes
one batch, and they disappear (due to lack of sales).

Paul