What’s the Cheapest Way to Use a 1TB SAS Drive Externally?
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MistyCedar42
I have a 1TB SAS hard drive removed from a decommissioned server. Is there a reasonably inexpensive way to use it as an external USB drive, or would the required adapter or enclosure cost and effort make it impractical? I was considering SAS-to-SATA and SATA-to-USB adapters, but I'm not sure whether that combination would actually work.
Answers
The least expensive workable setup would generally be a SAS controller or bridge plus a SATA-to-USB adapter, but that only makes sense if you can install the controller in a desktop or already have compatible hardware. External SAS docks are much more expensive than standard SATA docks.
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For one 1TB disk, replacing it with a regular desktop SATA drive in a USB enclosure will probably be cheaper and much simpler. SAS starts making more financial sense when you have several larger drives and can run them internally with a proper SAS HBA.
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Unfortunately, SAS drives aren’t compatible with ordinary passive SAS-to-SATA cables. You need hardware that can actually communicate with SAS, such as a SAS controller or a dedicated SAS-to-USB bridge. Those docks and enclosures usually cost around $100 or more, so it’s difficult to justify for a single 1TB drive.
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MistyCedar42: That’s what I was afraid of. I found some inexpensive-looking SAS-to-SATA cables, but it sounds like they wouldn’t solve the compatibility problem.