this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024

68 points (95.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26512 readers

906 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

AsudoxDev

Mistakenly bought a SAS Drive (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello,

Bought a spare super cheap used 3TB drive a year ago, and just figured out it's not a SATA but a SAS drive.

How fucked am I? What can I do more than using it as a paperweight?

Cheers!

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

This is all assuming it's a spinning disk and not an SSD, so ignore me if that's the case:

Given SAS drives are usually used in data centre storage array applications and 3TB disks have been kinda small for that use case for a fair while, there's a fairly high chance it was in heavy use for a good number of years. I'd bet it's probably well on its way to being a paperweight regardless of your connectivity situation.

If you do get it hooked up, don't store anything on it you wouldn't be okay losing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep spinning rust.

Wanted a scratch disk to aggregate all my sensitive information thats scattered and duplicated on smaller disks and thumb drives. Would probably keep it as an ultimate backup too (I got a real backup).

My thinking was that usually those disks are swapped out after 5 years when failure rates starts to creep up, but there's still is some life left, largely enough for some fun.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

SMART will tell you how many hours it's been running

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

If I get it up and running ^^ !

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yust buy a SAS controller (with cables), they are used pretty cheap.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago

You can get a SAS USB external enclosure but they're in the $100 range, probably not worth it for 3TB.

For internal use, you can get a used PCIe SAS Host Bus Adapter fairly cheap BUT you need to do some research. Before you buy one you should confirm that there is a driver for the OS that you are using and that it is supported on your processor/socket/chipset. These cards are server hardware - many of them are not supported by Windows and/or are not compatible with consumer motherboards & CPUs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Why buy a used drive? Save $12? F that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't know where you live but I got the drive for 30€ including shipping, a new drive is over 100€...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

And then two years down the line you lose all the data - the pictures, the savegames, the porn collection. Drives are the one thing that shouldn't be bought used

[–] randombullet 10 points 4 weeks ago

Not if you have a proper backup plan.

I have about 200ish TB or about 24 drives and 3 of them failed all are used. I have a solid backup plan so no issues with failing drives. Saves me roughly 100-200 a drive.

New drives have infant mortality as well. An inverse bell curve would be the distribution.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Look, i'm buying two hard drives no matter what to anticipate a drive failure. In that case, if i'm anticipating a failure anyway, might as well buy them second-hand and, yes, save a ton of money.

The key is to look for a CrystalDiskInfo screenshot in the ad, which is indicative of a serious seller and also lets you know the drive's condition. If you buy from a professional, you may get a warranty.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I learned the hard way when the cheap PSU blew up and took with it the mobo, my drive and my backup drive. That was the year 2000 or 2001.

Since then I do have a good backup strategy (with most important stuff on amazon glacier).

So you learned the hard way losing your porn stash 😉 ?

Jk, and the drive is not for important stuff.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

PSU you is the other part you don't want to cheap out on... Guess you got two lessons in one there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

A lot of people learn this lesson sadly. It isn't "sexy" to brag that you have a gold / platinum rated high quality PSU. People would rather add a "Ti" or a "10" to their graphics card and then lose it all when it goes. Same reason why I have an UPS for home PC - sure, overvoltage, undervoltage, electrical noise probably won't harm the PC. But why risk it? Also having a battery to save your shit, or buy more electricity online when you run out on a prepaid meter is cool (speaking from experience, happened to me like 10 times already lol)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I never heard about pre paid electric meters for homes. May I ask where you are located? Small UPS seems like the frickin perfect addon to that situation!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, for sure. To be totally fair I probably got even more lessons out of it as I upgraded my SOs Duron 650 to an Athlon (so new mobo) and that was what blew up the chep PSU I guess...

Usually I now go 750-900w platinum just because it's so nice when the fan doesn't start before 400 watts (and it heats less ofc).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

I salvaged an 18 year old WD hard disk from a pentium IV system.

It works to this day in my retro gaming machine lol

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago

I've gotten 3 drives from serverpartdeals, an 18 and a pair of 22s. They were $220, about half price.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Buy a cheap (used?) SAS controller. No big deal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Congrats on the new paper weight!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

Ha ha thanks I guess 😁

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The search brings up these scary words. It says you are 100% fucked.

At the same time, I see those cheap ass converters on Amazon >.> I have never tried one.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

You can adapt SATA drives to an SAS controller, but you cannot adapt SAS drives to a SATA controller.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm gonna put my chips on the side of "these 8 dollar converters won't work"

But maybe OP is brave idk

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Ya maybe I'll sit this one out 😁

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks! Yeah looks like it's only the other way around.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I've seen SAS-SATA adapters for sale online. I got a 120GB used SAS, and it's cheaper to buy another drive than to order the adapter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Those adapters only work for plugging SATA drives into SAS controllers. You can't use an adapter to plug a SAS drive into a SATA port

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well sometimes it can, it seems.

I'll try to be back and tell :-)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No, they can't. You need a SAS controller for a SAS drive, there is no way around it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Check out y0dins post below, there are SAS drives with SATA compatibility it seems.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

You can get a used sas controller for cheap in most cases. Or try your luck with the generic stuff on Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Haven't tried it myself, but there is cheap converters available on AliExpress:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EwYtdeV

Might be worth it to avoid using it as a paperweight?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The link in Sanctus post says its SAS to SATA but the other way around doesn't work for cheap converters 😞

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

sorry if I misunderstood, but wasn't his drive sas, and he needed to go to sata connections? this does that.

sas hdd => sata controller connetions

the converter is not the culprit, the drive needs a sata logo on the label for it to work the other way, which is mentioned on the sales page.

if the drive had that logo or not is not mentioned as far as I can see

(edit, thought it was OP replying at first, so changed that, and added requirements for the adapter)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

That's exactly what I'd like to find, but you cannot, it seems, connect a SAS disk to a SATA slot on the mobo, only the other way around, with this adapter.

The comments also seems to say exactly that (you have to put 4 or 5 stars to comment, so that's a useless measure, gotta read those translated comments).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (7 children)

you can, if you read my edited post, as long as the SATA logo is present on the label of the sas drive

as mentioned in the description of the product

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

there is cheap controllers as well btw:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_ExfUSap

lots of cheap electronics for all your needs over there :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Ha ha yes my home is filled with unsuspectedly good stuff from aliexpress 😅

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

What you do is to look on the local used hardware sites, search for server, fet a cheap one with SAS interfaces, and now you have the start of a homelab.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Good idea, but what am I going to do with my thinkcentres 😁

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments