this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024

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Mistakenly bought a SAS Drive (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by Valmond@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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!

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[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This is all assuming it's a spinning disk and not an SSD, so ignore me if that's the case:

Given SAS drives are usually used in data centre storage array applications and 3TB disks have been kinda small for that use case for a fair while, there's a fairly high chance it was in heavy use for a good number of years. I'd bet it's probably well on its way to being a paperweight regardless of your connectivity situation.

If you do get it hooked up, don't store anything on it you wouldn't be okay losing.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep spinning rust.

Wanted a scratch disk to aggregate all my sensitive information thats scattered and duplicated on smaller disks and thumb drives. Would probably keep it as an ultimate backup too (I got a real backup).

My thinking was that usually those disks are swapped out after 5 years when failure rates starts to creep up, but there's still is some life left, largely enough for some fun.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

SMART will tell you how many hours it's been running

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

If I get it up and running ^^ !

[–] tedvdb@feddit.nl 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yust buy a SAS controller (with cables), they are used pretty cheap.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 13 points 1 month ago

You can get a SAS USB external enclosure but they're in the $100 range, probably not worth it for 3TB.

For internal use, you can get a used PCIe SAS Host Bus Adapter fairly cheap BUT you need to do some research. Before you buy one you should confirm that there is a driver for the OS that you are using and that it is supported on your processor/socket/chipset. These cards are server hardware - many of them are not supported by Windows and/or are not compatible with consumer motherboards & CPUs.

[–] Travelator@thelemmy.club 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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

[–] randombullet@programming.dev 10 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] thawed_caveman@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

PSU you is the other part you don't want to cheap out on... Guess you got two lessons in one there.

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A lot of people learn this lesson sadly. It isn't "sexy" to brag that you have a gold / platinum rated high quality PSU. People would rather add a "Ti" or a "10" to their graphics card and then lose it all when it goes. Same reason why I have an UPS for home PC - sure, overvoltage, undervoltage, electrical noise probably won't harm the PC. But why risk it? Also having a battery to save your shit, or buy more electricity online when you run out on a prepaid meter is cool (speaking from experience, happened to me like 10 times already lol)

[–] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I never heard about pre paid electric meters for homes. May I ask where you are located? Small UPS seems like the frickin perfect addon to that situation!

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, for sure. To be totally fair I probably got even more lessons out of it as I upgraded my SOs Duron 650 to an Athlon (so new mobo) and that was what blew up the chep PSU I guess...

Usually I now go 750-900w platinum just because it's so nice when the fan doesn't start before 400 watts (and it heats less ofc).

[–] Vivendi@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

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

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

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

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

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

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Buy a cheap (used?) SAS controller. No big deal.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

On ebay.fr they are like the price of the drive (around 25€ with shipping) :-(

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Congrats on the new paper weight!

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[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The search brings up these scary words. It says you are 100% fucked.

At the same time, I see those cheap ass converters on Amazon >.> I have never tried one.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can adapt SATA drives to an SAS controller, but you cannot adapt SAS drives to a SATA controller.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm gonna put my chips on the side of "these 8 dollar converters won't work"

But maybe OP is brave idk

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Ya maybe I'll sit this one out 😁

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks! Yeah looks like it's only the other way around.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Just sell it on or cancel.

[–] Toes@ani.social 5 points 1 month ago

You can get a used sas controller for cheap in most cases. Or try your luck with the generic stuff on Amazon.

[–] GeorgimusPrime@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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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[–] y0din@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (13 children)

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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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Use them as clients in your homelab?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Connot have too many computers!

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