Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a computer bus used to move data to and from computer storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS depends on a point-to-point serial protocol that replaces the parallel SCSI bus technology that first appeared in the mid 1980s in data centers and ...
46
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8answers
3k views
How can a single disk in a hardware SATA RAID-10 array bring the entire array to a screeching halt?
Prelude:
I'm a code-monkey that's increasingly taken on SysAdmin duties for my small company. My code is our product, and increasingly we provide the same app as SaaS.
About 18 months ago I moved ...
39
votes
3answers
43k views
What are the merits of SAS vs SATA drives?
What are the merits of buying SAS drives over SATA drives, or vice versa?
22
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2answers
2k views
Why are enterprise SAS disk enclosures seemingly so expensive?
I will begin by stating that I do not believe this is a duplicate of Why is business-class storage so expensive?.
My question is specifically about SAS drive enclosures, and justifying their expense.
...
21
votes
10answers
11k views
Cheapest way to connect 20-24 Sata II HDDs in a budget storage server? [closed]
I need to assemble a high density storage server for as cheap as possible.
It's been a while for me and the last systems I integrated didn't even have Sata yet...
During my Research I of course ...
13
votes
4answers
8k views
Anyone seen a meaningful SAS vs SATA comparison/benchmark?
I hear lots about SATA being slower than SAS but I've only found 1 decent benchmark.
http://blog.whitesites.com/SAS-RAID-0-VS-SCSI-RAID-0-VS-SATA-Benchmarks__633689244191943184_blog.htm
In this, SAS ...
10
votes
4answers
1k views
Any experience with SATA SAS Interposer Cards?
Driven by the current price difference between SATA and SAS disks on one side and the potentially bad behaviour of SATA disks in bigger storage arrays on the other side, I have found so-called ...
8
votes
7answers
19k views
SCSI vs SATA? Is SCSI “actually” better? [closed]
Well, I was talking with a guy about servers the other day. I was a bit shocked whenever I asked him if there was any significant difference between SCSI and SATA and why he always uses SCSI. (note, ...
8
votes
2answers
328 views
Are branded backplanes useable without specific controllers?
I can't find a disk enclosure which I like, so I'm going to build a custom one (if nothing else, that'll teach me to be picky...). I've got a few HP SAS backplanes lying about, but I'm wondering if ...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
Improving SAS multipath to JBOD performance on Linux
I'm trying to optimize a storage setup on some Sun hardware with Linux. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
We have the following hardware:
Sun Blade X6270
2* LSISAS1068E SAS controllers
2* ...
7
votes
3answers
20k views
SAS vs. Nearline/MDL SAS - What is the difference?
As subject I guess, looking at SAN's and most vendors offer 10k or 15k "proper" SAS drives, many also offer 7.2k MDL/Nearline SAS drives.
Does anyone have an authoritative explanation of the ...
7
votes
5answers
392 views
ML350 G5 - upgrade hot swap drives to 6 Gb/s?
I support a non profit. They got an ML350 G5 donated to them and I immediately put it to good use for them :) It came with four HP 300GB 15K SAS drives - and of course, they have all now failed. I ...
6
votes
1answer
479 views
replace controller, add second controller, or use expander?
I have a Proliant DL380 G6 that I am re-purposing as a Hyper-V host for a new, off-site data center that will host our DR services.
The server currently has a P410i controller with the 512MB BBWC ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
LSI 9285-8e and Supermicro SC837E26-RJBOD1 duplicate enclosure ID and slot numbers
I am working with 2 x Supermicro SC837E26-RJBOD1 chassis connected to a single LSI 9285-8e card in a Supermicro 1U host. There are 28 drives in each chassis for a total of 56 drives in 28 RAID1 ...
5
votes
4answers
8k views
Performance differences between 2.5“ vs. 3.5” SAS
What real performance gains/losses are there on 2.5" vs. 3.5" 15k SAS drives. Are folks really seeing seek differences, &c?
5
votes
8answers
2k views
What are SAS external storage options (Promise, Infortrend, SuperMircro, …)?
We are looking for a ~32T external storage solution for two 48-core AMD servers. These will be used for a small Linux OpenVZ cloud for CPU intensive web-servers and data warehousing. Dual path with ...
5
votes
2answers
516 views
SAS enclosure doesn't restart - MSA60
I just inherited a HP StorageWorks MSA60 (this is a direct-attach SAS enclosure).
I had to move it to another shelf so I turned off the computer which was using it. I also pulled the 2 power cords off ...
5
votes
2answers
419 views
Nearline SAS on SATA controllers
I know that SAS drives cannot operate on a SATA controller.
I know that SATA drives can operate on a SAS controller.
But can Near-Line SAS drives, being SATA drives with a SAS controller, be used on
...
5
votes
3answers
403 views
Dell MD1000 and an x4 SAS connector throughput / layout
I'm trying to get my head around how a multi lane x4 SAS connector works in a DAS system such as the Dell MD1000. I understand that each lane is 3Gbps, and that multiple hard drives can share a lane. ...
5
votes
1answer
6k views
How can I connect a SAS drive to USB? [closed]
I have a Dell T710 with Seagate Cheetah 15k.7 SAS disks. If the T710 motherboard dies, I'll need to resort to one of my nightly off-site backups and salvage the journal/logfile from the SAS disk to ...
4
votes
6answers
2k views
Use of 2.5" Laptop Drives in a Server?
We're acquiring several 1U servers with (8) 2.5" drive slots. Although we can use either SATA or SAS, there is a large price variance as soon as you order 16 or 24 of these drives, so we are looking ...
4
votes
3answers
4k views
SAS vs Near-line SAS vs SATA
I'm unsure about the differences in these storage interfaces. My Dell servers all have SAS RAID controllers in them and they seem to be cross-compatible to an extent.
The Ultra-320 SCSI RAID ...
4
votes
5answers
1k views
How should I sanitize a SAS drive that I removed from a RAID 5 Array?
I had a disk experience a predictive failure. As a result, I removed the drive and replaced it.
Now that I have the drive removed, I would like to sanitize it. What is the easiest way to go about ...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
Is it normal for a SAS drive to have a few bad blocks, or should I replace my drive ASAP?
I have a drive—part of a RAID 1 mirror—that has two bad blocks. Adaptec Storage Manger e-mailed me when it detected the blocks. It shows 4 medium errors for that drive, but state is still “optimal”.
...
4
votes
3answers
313 views
What type of SAS/SATA cables do Dell SAS6/iR and SAS5/iR controller cards use?
I'm considering buying a bunch of these to upgrade our servers at work (with SATA drives, not true SAS). We are out of ports to plug disks into, and these cards are decently supported and cheap.
The ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
Beginner SAS and server questions
I am a c++ programmer and database administrator looking to expand my knowledge of server administration and maintenance. I have read the Wikipedia pages and several other documents I found by ...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
SAS Expanders for DIY JBOD Arrays
I am researching making a DIY SAS array much like the Dell MD1000. My understanding is that these devices do not contain a RAID controller, instead they present all the drives on in SAS domain to the ...
4
votes
1answer
73 views
Do SAS expanders work transparently with SAS controllers?
I'm new to SAS expanders and I'm trying to get things right. I understand that SAS expanders, when used with SAS controllers which supports expanders, allows you to utilise the full capacity of ...
4
votes
1answer
2k views
Mixing dual and single port SAS disks
I have a HP DL380 G5 with 8x146GB single port SAS SSF disks (DG146ABAB4).
A couple of them have failed and I can't find any new single port disks anymore. They all seem to be dual port. I'm wondering ...
3
votes
6answers
257 views
Way to inexpensively temporarily increase storage on production servers?
We have a set of 6 servers in production for storing some massive databases. Right now they have 280Gb of disk space striped and mirrored across 15K SCSI Drives, our existing database fills them to ...
3
votes
4answers
5k views
SAS or SATA for 3 TB drives?
We are looking to purchase new 3 TB enterprise-grade drives and can buy either SAS or SATA models.
AFAIK, SAS generally gives better performance than SATA, but searching for benchmarks I found ...
3
votes
4answers
2k views
HP D2700 enclosure and SSDs. Will any SSD work?
I've got an HP D2700 enclosure that I'm looking to shove some 2.5" SSD drives in. Looking at the prices of HP's SSD drives vs something like an Intel 710 and even something less 'enterprisey', there's ...
3
votes
3answers
386 views
Are all SAS drives hot-swappable?
Can get a 300GB Cheetah 15K SAS 3.5 disk for quite a bit cheaper through another supplier vs. Dell's out-of-warranty depot (for an aging PowerEdge server). Specs are identical, wondering if there's ...
3
votes
3answers
183 views
HP SAS hdd in non-HP server
I wonder if I could re-use some HP SAS drive in a non-HP server.
Description:
146GB 2.5" Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SFF
3G Single Port Hot-Plug 10K HDD
Option Part# 431958-B21
Spare Part# 432320-001
...
3
votes
1answer
147 views
Mixing 15K rpm SAS with 7.2K rpm SATA on Dell PowerEdge R610
Is it possible to mix 15K rpm SAS with 7.2K rpm SATA on Dell PowerEdge R610 on the same RAID configuration (Raid 5)?
Is the SAS' speed going to drop to follow the lowest speed (the SATA speed)?
and ...
3
votes
1answer
396 views
Can I mix SAS and SATA2 drives on one controller?
I've read here that I can't mix SAS and SATA2 drives on the same controller - is that really true? I understand I shouldn't mix on the same channel, but the same card!?
For example, when I plug my ...
3
votes
1answer
174 views
Are PCIe v2 RAID controllers backward compatible with PCIe V1?
I am looking to add a PCIe V.2 RAID controller (LSI SAS 9280-4i4e) to an older Intel server (SR2500) which has PCIe V.1 slots.
Does anyone have any experience with using RAID controllers designed for ...
3
votes
4answers
619 views
ZFS server hardware questions
I'm a photographer by trade and I've yet to find a method I'm happy with for archiving my work. Currently I'm looking at building a NAS server using OpenSolaris, so I can use ZFS. That way I can take ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
Solaris Multipathed I/O - Physically Removing a Disk
I am a Solaris newbie. I have a Solaris 10u8 machine that is running an attached J4400 and some internal drives. We're using multipathed SAS I/O (stmsboot; mpathadm), so the device mount points have ...
3
votes
2answers
486 views
DAS vs SAN storage for serving 2 to 4 nodes
We currently have 4 Linux nodes with local storage, arranged in two active/passive pairs with storage mirrored using DRBD, running virtual machines (actually using Xen Hypervisor) for typical hosting ...
3
votes
1answer
4k views
Are 6Gb/s SAS drives compatible with 3Gb/s SAS interfaces?
Are SAS 3Gb/s controllers (SAS1) forward compatible with newer SAS2 drives specified at 6Gb/s? The controller I have in mind is an LSI SAS1064. I know that SAS2 controllers are backwards compatible ...
3
votes
1answer
947 views
What is the difference between NHS, HS and Slim-HS SAS Drives?
I am curious to what is the practical difference, if any to the following:
IBM 300 GB 10K 6 Gbps SAS 2.5" SFF Slim-HS HDD 42D0637
IBM 300 GB 10K 6 Gbps SAS 2.5" SFF HS HDD 42D0612
...
3
votes
1answer
280 views
IO/s and MB throughput for Various RAID Arrays
Are there any resources that have typical throughput and IOp/s for various RAID arrays under sequential and random patterns?
In my case I am more specifically interested in at the moment:
6 Disk ...
3
votes
1answer
247 views
SSD in early 2008 Xserve Apple Drive Module
Pretty much the title: it possible to use a modern, 2.5″ SSD in an Apple Drive Module on a early 2008 Xserve? This would be replacing a 15k RPM SAS drive, and in most places I've looked that HDD is ...
3
votes
2answers
218 views
External SAS cable or adaptor with 90 degree plug
We have an HP tape autochanger mounted in a rack, but it's so deep that with the external mini-SAS cable plugged in we cannot close the rear rack door - if we did we'd crush the SAS cable well beyond ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Recovering data from SAS drives after failed SAS Controller Card?
The SAS Controller Card in a production server of ours went bad. This was an older server, and Dell does not have the card in stock and not ETA for one. So, I ordered one from NewEgg.
I installed the ...
2
votes
4answers
386 views
7.2K Near Line SAS with Large RAID Controller Cache vs 10/15K SAS
I'm working on an application to capture a lot (10 million +) of really small blocks of data (16 bytes) every day. The data is not sequential (i.e lots of seeking about to write) and it's not a ...
2
votes
3answers
1k views
SAS vs SAS2 interface
I´m pretty new to this server environment and I´m looking to expand the capacity of our HP Proliant DL385 G2 server. I want to replace the 146 GB disks with 300 GB disks.
My question is:
Can I use a ...
2
votes
6answers
2k views
“Raid 0 SAS” versus “2nd generation SSD”
i was planning to buy a SAS system made of two 15k RPM disks in Raid 0 configuration to give a boost to my s.o. and my apps... but after i saw that article on Coding Horror, i've started to thinking ...
2
votes
5answers
265 views
HA Cluster having tower 4U server with SAS
I'm a little bit confused in here..
I want to have 2 node cluster with shared storage. I read all wiki page about HA cluster. Now in my head there's a scheme like:
So we have two 4U tower servers ...
2
votes
2answers
273 views
RAID card w/1x mini-SAS connector : how do I physically connect 16 disks?
I'm looking at a MegaRAID SAS 9240-4i Sgl card which has a single X4 Mini-SAS SFF8087 connector. As far as I know, such a connector can be expanded to 4 SATA disks. So, I would know how to connect 4 ...
