Seeking SAS SFF-8087 Drives That Are Mountable In A Consumer Case

[WhosTheBosch]

I'm going to get a Supermicro board X10SRH-CLN4F that comes with a built-in SAS LSI 3008 SW. However, because I'm planning on using just two disks in RAID 1 and mounting them in a regular case I'm having problems finding drives that will work. It seems that the SAS on that SM board uses SFF-8087 and that most of the SAS drives have a direct connection to hot swap bays which in my case I will not have.

This Seagate CAP 3.5 HDD 3.5 8TB drive will work but it uses a SATA connector while working as SAS. I'd prefer to see what other options might be out there. Does anyone have any ideas? Or could you give me a few suggestions on how I can search for SFF-8087 drives without hot swap bays?

 

[i386]

The X10SRH-CLN4f comes with SAS3 and SFF-8643 connectors (SFF-8087 is for SAS2).

You need a SFF-8643 to sata fanout cable if you want to connect drives directly to the LSI S3008 controller.

 

[WhosTheBosch]

Thanks for the info. So would that cable then work for all SATA drives? Is there anyway to hook SAS drives directly to it or because I want to mount the drives in a case without hot swap bays then SAS drives wouldn't work?

 

[sno.cn]

Yep. You can get it with a direct connection SAS fanout too. Just look for a "SFF-8643 to SAS fanout cable."

 

[WhosTheBosch]

Thanks, so to make this clear:

SAS3 = SFF-8643
SAS2 = SFF-8087

So that means this should work: X10SRH-CLN4F > SFF-8643 to SAS fanout cable > Any SAS 3 HDD?

 

[WhosTheBosch]

Yep. You can get it with a direct connection SAS fanout too. Just look for a "SFF-8643 to SAS fanout cable."


View attachment 4542

Do you have a few examples of retailers that have those? I can only see the SFF-8643 to SATA fan out cables.

 

[Jon Massey]

Try searching for SFF-8643 to SFF-8482 fanout. They tend to come in sata-power or molex-power variants.

 

[WhosTheBosch]

Try searching for SFF-8643 to SFF-8482 fanout. They tend to come in sata-power or molex-power variants.

Thanks, that did it and I can see a whole bunch now.

So does that mean I can get any SAS3 drive then and use the fanout cable it would be able to be mounted in a regular case?

 

[Jon Massey]

If said case has appropriate mounts

 

[WhosTheBosch]

I was looking at something like one of the following:

Seagate 8TB Enterprise Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SAS 12Gb/s 256MB 3.5" ST8000NM0095

I would prefer HGST but they are $200-$300 more expensive here and the Seagate is 4KN with SED. I'm not sure why it's so cheap compared to others.

I just hope it's not loud with the clicking of other Seagate drives as I'll be running two of them in RAID 1.

 

[i386]

(Singleport) sas and sata drives use the same connectors, the sff #XXXX connector would go to your controller (raid, hba) and the other ends that look like sata connectors go to your drives (sata or sas).

 

[Jon Massey]

IME SAS drives don't have the gap between the "looks like SATA data connector" bit and the "looks like SATA power bit" - the little plastic nub in its place has pins on the other side. It's been a couple of years since I've had cause to handle one so I may well be wrong!.

 

[WhosTheBosch]

(Singleport) sas and sata drives use the same connectors, the sff #XXXX connector would go to your controller (raid, hba) and the other ends that look like sata connectors go to your drives (sata or sas).

Do I have to specifically look for a singleport SAS3 drive or will any of them be one?

 

[Jon Massey]

They're usually dual port, but connecting them single-ported to your controller is fine.

Coming back to your original post, any particular reason for going for SAS over SATA?