sata / sas

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So im looking for a quick ish drive / drives and have been toying with the idea of SAS. Ive found a few controller cards - namely adaptec and they say theyre a sata/ sas card - Do sas drives work using the same cables as sata.. ?
 
Well ive tried a ocz ibis and had nothing but trouble with it to be honest, i dont mind the noise - used to run scsi so am used to it !
 
So im looking for a quick ish drive / drives and have been toying with the idea of SAS. Ive found a few controller cards - namely adaptec and they say theyre a sata/ sas card - Do sas drives work using the same cables as sata.. ?

SATA is electrical compatible with SATA. You'll need to check the type of cable used on the controller card you get, sometimes they are ordinary single ports but sometimes they consolidate four ports into a single connection, in which case you'll need a special cable to break out from the single connection into four SATA connectors.
 
SAS drives use similar connectors to sata but there not the same, the power and data cable are combined into one big connector, you can use sas cables on sata drives but not vice versa.

I use 2 SAS drives for my OS, via a perc5 card. combined they were cheaper than a single ssd drive.
Even though there 10k drives i dont hear them above my fans.
 
SAS drives use similar connectors to sata but there not the same, the power and data cable are combined into one big connector, you can use sas cables on sata drives but not vice versa.

I use 2 SAS drives for my OS, via a perc5 card. combined they were cheaper than a single ssd drive.
Even though there 10k drives i dont hear them above my fans.
A few questions if i may:

What OS are you using?
Did you have any issues getting it to work as boot drive? Ive had no end of trouble with my IBIS hence looking at sas..
WHo makes the perc5 card & does it go into the PCIe4 slot?
Cheers
 
Yeh no problems :)
The card is made by LSI but branded by Dell. I've no issues with it as using it as a boot device with either Win7 or Ubuntu. The card is a PCIe card currently in a PCIeX16.
The only issue i had with the bare card is my motherboard only detects 3 out of 4gb of ram with the card plugged in, but simply taping over 2 of the pins resolved that with no other side affects.
See here :)
http://www.avforums.com/forums/hard...8-dell-perc6-i-raid-5-diy-budget-project.html

The Perc5/6 is probably the best raid card for the price point.
 
Yeh no problems :)
The card is made by LSI but branded by Dell. I've no issues with it as using it as a boot device with either Win7 or Ubuntu. The card is a PCIe card currently in a PCIeX16.
The only issue i had with the bare card is my motherboard only detects 3 out of 4gb of ram with the card plugged in, but simply taping over 2 of the pins resolved that with no other side affects.
See here :)
http://www.avforums.com/forums/hard...8-dell-perc6-i-raid-5-diy-budget-project.html

The Perc5/6 is probably the best raid card for the price point.

Ace thanks, not sure which drives to go for really - most of what ive found are 15k ibms or fujitsus.. What drives do you use and what power source do the drives require?
Thanks again..
 
The drives are powered by the normal 4pin molex connector, they plug into the cable.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360312960551&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
These are the ones i bought. The actual dell cables are better as they only require one molex. These are a little messy unless you fancy spicing the molex's together.
Currently running HP 2.5" 10k 70GB drives. The only time i hear them is when Windows is indexing or defragging.

I bought it all 2nd hand so the overall cost was 1/2 that of a SSD drive. I've just seen two 300gb SAS drives go for £70 each, and the perc cards can be picked up from £50 to £100, thats not a bad setup for ~£200!
 
I only hope the PERC cards are compatible with my rampage 3 as my adaptec 39320 one wouldnt go past the bios.... Now i mention it - i wonder if thats anything to do with the Pins like in that guide you posted .... Hmm unlikely actually..
 
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