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!

1 point
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3 points

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.

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1 point

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

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1 point

Well sometimes it can, it seems.

I’ll try to be back and tell :-)

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1 point

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

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3 points

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?

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1 point

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

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1 point

there is cheap controllers as well btw:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_ExfUSap

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

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2 points

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

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2 points
*

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)

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1 point

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).

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2 points

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.

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2 points

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

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1 point

Use them as clients in your homelab?

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2 points

Connot have too many computers!

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12 points

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

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6 points

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

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9 points

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

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5 points

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

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1 point

And controllers. Nobody gets rid of a controller unless it’s dying.

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bullshit. drives should be backed up if the data is important which makes refurb and used drives perfectly acceptable. raid and good backups exists for a reason and don’t leave you to rely on one single drive to live forever.

if you’re buying large drives and not using a system with raid functionality, you’re setting yourself up for failure, new drive or not. no crying you were warned.

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4 points

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.

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2 points

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

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9 points

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.

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4 points

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.

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