topic Re: Sata vs SAS - pros and cons OR advice in New SAS User

Sata vs SAS - pros and cons OR advice

harta5 — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:18:38 GMT

Hi,

I run my own server with ~50TB raw, using my old gaming cpu/mobo and it's default SATA ports. I'm looking to expand even more, but have run out of ports. I want to expand with future upgradability in mind (probable upgrade to rack mounted server, more hard drives etc) so I also want to explore SAS.

I tried looking at explainers of SAS vs Sata - they were either super high level, not giving me the knowledge/insight I want (statements like 'SAS is has high transfer rates' and further along in the same article 'Sata is better for writing data').

Or the articles are extremely in depth, and I can't understand them because I don't have the prerequisite knowledge.

So I would love it if you could give me a recommendation (sata or SAS card) with some explanation as to why the choice, and why not the other one.

Thanks for reading

Re: Sata vs SAS - pros and cons OR advice

SASJedi — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:48:29 GMT

I believe you are asking advice about the pros and cons of using Serial Attached SCSI interface (SAS) vs. Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives - a hardware question. This site is targeted for uses of SAS software - a completely unrelated topic 😉. You will get better answers by pursuing this question on a hardware forum like the Enterprise Storage Forum.

All the best,

Mark

Re: Sata vs SAS - pros and cons OR advice

SASKiwi — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 20:19:24 GMT

I would not get too hung up on different disk technologies. SAS is very IO intensive so faster is better. If you are buying new storage then you should definitely look at SSDs (Solid State Drives) as they definitely are faster than the old mechanical drives you mention. If you want to test out your storage IO, SAS provides a handy utility for that: https://support.sas.com/kb/51/659.html