Enterprise SAS and Consumer SATA on the Same Backplane?

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BecauseScience

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Feb 3, 2016
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I have a bunch of consumer SATA disks but I need more space and I'm looking at enterprise disks. The price premium to go enterprise isn't that much at the larger sizes.

I have a Supermicro SC847 with SAS3 backplanes. My HBA is an m1015 but I plan to upgrade to an SAS3 HBA at some point. My disks will always be used in JBOD mode. I can't see myself ever using hardware raid.

Should I stick with SATA or move up to SAS if i decide to get enterprise disks?

Is mixing consumer SATA disks and enterprise SAS disks a good idea? Bad idea?

Suppose I've decided on the 8TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity disk. It comes in both SAS (ST8000NM0075) and SATA (ST8000NM0055). Would I see any benefit from going with the SAS version?

What benifits of SAS disks might be lost because they have to share an expander with SATA disks?

Anything anyone has to say on the topic will probably help.

FYI: My current disks are a mix of ST4000DM000 and the dreaded ST3000DM001.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Most people say mixing SAS & SATA on same backplane is a bad idea, and if the price isn't that much I would surely go all SAS drives.

Are those archive only disks?
 

gea

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Dec 31, 2010
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If Sata and SAS disks are of the same quality, I see at least no technical problems with mixing Sata and SAS unless you do not need MPIO or a cable length >1m but I would avoid Sata disks on expander solutions.

The Seagate seems to be similar beside the Interface.
http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../ent-capacity-3-5-hdd-8tb-ds1863-1-1508us.pdf

But in general, SAS is the more professional interface while Sata is mostly cheaper.
 

Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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Mixing SATA and SAS did not work for me on a SC846 with SAS2 backplane and M1015 flashed to IT mode. It did, however work when I moved the SAS drive to the second channel by itself.
 
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Chuckleb

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Mar 5, 2013
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I've used mixed SAS and SATA on 9260/9265/9280 LSI cards without problems. They advise against mixing disks in the same pool, but since they are all JBOD, it's not an issue for you. I would say that it should be fine.
 

BecauseScience

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Feb 3, 2016
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I've used mixed SAS and SATA on 9260/9265/9280 LSI cards without problems. They advise against mixing disks in the same pool, but since they are all JBOD, it's not an issue for you. I would say that it should be fine.
Were the disks on an expander or were they connected directly to your LSI card?
 

andrewbedia

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Jan 11, 2013
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I've used SAS and SATA side by side in the same HP StorageWorks MSA60 enclosure. No problems, ever.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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For the most part, the problems reported mixing SAS/SATA on the same HBA and/or Expander were SAS1 issues. In SAS1 the SATA encapsulation had flaws (and the early implementations of it had even more flaws).

Most of this was fixed in SAS2, the the remaining flaws removed in SAS3. You'll be fine.