time
Storage? I am Storage!
:rofl:
SAS: CARDS, ETC. WORTH THE MONEY?
- Thread starter Santilli
- Start date
Stereodude
Not really a
Neither does LM.
Neither does LM.
So what? My photos are of landscapes and wildlife. Although they do not fall under any proscribed classification, they are my photos and I don't want anyone to access them. :-x
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2002
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I must say this topic has brought out the worst, near ad homs for this forum.
I look back at the responses, and, I asked a specific question:
Have you used SAS, your experience, and, what are the component costs?
I see very little experience with the product here, less related, and, more a general attack, toward me, for even wanting to look at the format, and interface.
I am aware that SCSI is difficult for some people. Since it's easy for me, well you draw your own conclusions about what I think of people who can't make a scsi/SAS setup work.
Sechs:
If it's so bad you gave the stuff to good will, please explain what was wrong, and why?
I've watched way to many incompetent IT guys not be able to figure out scsi to think that it's the interfaces problem, without more evidence.
Also, Sam, you should know better. If I want to ask a group of 'IT professionals' what they think of an interface, value, etc. I was hoping for something a bit past 3rd grade responses.
Shame on most of you...
I look back at the responses, and, I asked a specific question:
Have you used SAS, your experience, and, what are the component costs?
I see very little experience with the product here, less related, and, more a general attack, toward me, for even wanting to look at the format, and interface.
I am aware that SCSI is difficult for some people. Since it's easy for me, well you draw your own conclusions about what I think of people who can't make a scsi/SAS setup work.
Sechs:
If it's so bad you gave the stuff to good will, please explain what was wrong, and why?
I've watched way to many incompetent IT guys not be able to figure out scsi to think that it's the interfaces problem, without more evidence.
Also, Sam, you should know better. If I want to ask a group of 'IT professionals' what they think of an interface, value, etc. I was hoping for something a bit past 3rd grade responses.
Shame on most of you...
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Greg, I know you have a fascination with enterprise hardware, but you don't actually need it. That's what we keep trying to tell you. I understand wanting a faster computer and not wanting to buy crappy hardware, but you need to understand you keep bringing up diesel engine trucks when what you really want is a reliable sports car.
SAS in particular is a handy way to get a lot of ports to stick drives on. The performance benefit is fairly minimal unless you're looking at overpriced, low capacity 15k drives... and if you're looking at those and you're not running a datacenter you should at least be looking at overpriced, low capacity MLC SSDs instead.
SAS in particular is a handy way to get a lot of ports to stick drives on. The performance benefit is fairly minimal unless you're looking at overpriced, low capacity 15k drives... and if you're looking at those and you're not running a datacenter you should at least be looking at overpriced, low capacity MLC SSDs instead.
SAS: hot, noisey, complex and for performance not cheap, I do agree that there is a perceived reliability gain in enterprise level stuff though.
SSD+some other terabyte SATA: faster (access time and IOPS, can't get around that with physical media, with an equal drive count of either you aren't going to beat SSD), cheaper, cooler (temperature) and far simpler.
SAS: CARDS, ETC. WORTH THE MONEY? = IMHO NO
SSD+some other terabyte SATA: faster (access time and IOPS, can't get around that with physical media, with an equal drive count of either you aren't going to beat SSD), cheaper, cooler (temperature) and far simpler.
SAS: CARDS, ETC. WORTH THE MONEY? = IMHO NO
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Way back, I know I had problems installing programs in non-C drives. Since then, I've religiously installed Windows and programs on C. Never felt adventurous enough to experiment, and haven't seen the need to. In all my systems, the C drive has only Windows and programs installed; data is always on another physical drive.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
That sounds like a thinly veiled attack right there.
Just for the record, I ran a SCSI boot drive until earlier this year, when I moved over to a SSD. I don't see how it's any harder to figure out. Unless you get an unterminated cable and you don't know it's supposed to be terminated. With SAS it almost certainly isn't any more difficult to setup.
fb
Storage is cool
- Yes
- I have 8 Savvio 15K.1 in one database server, two in RAID 1 and the rest as single drives where we use two disks/database, one with the data file and one with the log file.
They are pretty fast. but nothing special - I wish we had bought a few SSDs as it would have been like 2500% faster and enough capacity. But unfortunately it was about a year ago and it would have been really expensive. - I think the cost was around $10000-12000 for a Dell server with 32GB RAM, the cheapest controller card they had and the disks.
Fushigi
Storage Is My Life
Yeah, at work we're dropping about $40K on 36 282GB (300GB) 15K SCSI drives to replace 36 70GB disks. After RAID5 we should go from 2.1 to 8.4TB in that partition. Going SAS was out of the budget as it would require new RAID controllers and even more install effort.
You have insulted me with your insults. Shame on you! You have pissed me off enough that I would be ignoring you, if I wasn't a moderator.
So just ignore us, find some SAS experts elsewhere. Perhaps the people at StorageReview (or somewhere else) can be of more use. It should be very easy to find better, since we are so collectively useless.
Have a nice life.
Stereodude
Not really a
I have an enterprise grade SAS raid card, so I guess I'm not in the same boat with most of you.
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
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Thank you Timwhit, Stereodude, Fushigi for replies on the subject.
The interface is a bit slower then SCSI's final version, allows far more devices connected, and allows you to connect SATA drives to the SAS backplanes?
So, I've got a bunch of people that despise SAS, yet are suggesting using SATA drives, which can be connected to the same controller?
For slot limited solutions that looks pretty neat. You boot off the SAS drive, and connect a SATA drive to the same controller, and use it for storage?
Looks like I should have bought an SAS controller rather then the current SATA controller I've got.
Also, if you have an SAS controller, it would allow you to easily connect SSD's as well.
What's not to like????
The interface is a bit slower then SCSI's final version, allows far more devices connected, and allows you to connect SATA drives to the SAS backplanes?
So, I've got a bunch of people that despise SAS, yet are suggesting using SATA drives, which can be connected to the same controller?
For slot limited solutions that looks pretty neat. You boot off the SAS drive, and connect a SATA drive to the same controller, and use it for storage?
Looks like I should have bought an SAS controller rather then the current SATA controller I've got.
Also, if you have an SAS controller, it would allow you to easily connect SSD's as well.
What's not to like????
ddrueding
Fixture
SATA controllers come free with every motherboard. You shouldn't have to pay for either. SAS controllers are even more expensive than SATA controllers.
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
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Another good point would be that you can connect a SSD to a SATA controller as well as to a SAS controller. David, you've already made the point that the current SATA controllers take advantage of the cpu/memory on the motherboard. Not sure how that works, but, that would be an advantage to SATA.
I was sort of recently tracking some PERC 6/i's on ebay recently...
They do seem to go with battery for anywhere in the ~$100-200 range as pointed out in another thread here. I haven't seen one at a good price with breakout cable yet, sure those must be only a couple bucks elsewhere. Intoxicating thoughts of a couple SSD in stripe to boot then say two to six of your favorite terabyte or multi terabyte drives for storage. Can't justify the cost though it would certainly be nice to have everything you own readily available like some high end theater systems I have seen. Can't remember the name on that right now.
They do seem to go with battery for anywhere in the ~$100-200 range as pointed out in another thread here. I haven't seen one at a good price with breakout cable yet, sure those must be only a couple bucks elsewhere. Intoxicating thoughts of a couple SSD in stripe to boot then say two to six of your favorite terabyte or multi terabyte drives for storage. Can't justify the cost though it would certainly be nice to have everything you own readily available like some high end theater systems I have seen. Can't remember the name on that right now.
Stereodude
Not really a
I have a few Perc 6/i's and a couple of Perc 5/i's. I am running an 8 drive 5400RPM Samsung SATA RAID-6 array on a Perc 6/i (SAS) in my basement. The cards were about $100 each (with battery).
The 4 SATA to SAS breakout cables are ~$10 shipped each on ebay.
The 4 SATA to SAS breakout cables are ~$10 shipped each on ebay.
Stereodude
Not really a
Well, apparently a lot of SAS controllers don't play nice with SATA drives. It all depends on the chipset they use. They're also expensive. The Dell Perc 5/i & 6/i are the exceptions, not the rule.
Stereodude
Not really a
Check around on the forums for recent posts Stereodude made regarding many tests with his perc and raid configurations. He did a lot of work and should give you some solid insight to their raid controllers.
theSwede
What is this storage?
I have been looking for a Perc 6i for a while, but I am unable to find anything even close to the $100 you are talking about here. The cheapest ones I can find on ebay right now are from $260 and up. Am I doing something wrong? Am I looking at the wrong places?
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
There's nothing wrong with it. Moving to SSDs was simply a much better choice.
SSDs are faster, cooler, and quieter. And I can free-up a PCI slot. What is there not to like here?
Stereodude
Not really a
I bought mine from this guy. link
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
1. Yes.
2. Ship SAS setups in file/database servers, at approx 1 per fortnight. SAS is no more difficult than SCSI when using SCA drives and enclosures. Typically we use HP P400 or P600 based controllers, coupled with an 8 bay 2.5" hot swap enclosure. (Normally fitted with either 2 or 4 drives).
3. We ship all HP branded servers, with drives sourced directly from HP.
Are SAS drives more reliable than SATA? umm, based on the numbers I've seen, not by much. (We tend to ship 10 SATA for 1 SAS drive).
Now for a home PC, I would select SSD over 15K SAS due to lower complexity in setup, eg as most SSDs are SATA, no additional controller is needed, lower heat output of SSD, etc.
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
I thought SR had died...
Stereodude
Not really a
Not likely. More like surplus pulls from servers.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
SAS has replaced parallel SCSI in the enterprise. New servers use SA-SCSI controllers and backplanes. My experience with the IBM lines seem to indicate no significant problems.
The majority of enterprise class drives are now using either Fiber Channel or SAS.
Here's a review of a bunch of SAS controllers:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/6-sas-raid-controllers-roundup.html
And 17 different SAS drives:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/sas-hdd-roundup.html
In any event things are cheaper now than back in the days of LVD and daisychaining massive cables.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
IMHO if you are looking to buy into SAS now, then wait for the 6Gb controllers and drives to come out. Right now is the end of the SAS 1.0 generation. Given your proven history of bleeding edge storage technology, I don't want you to have buyers remorse.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I have two Perc5s in machines at home. I bought them off Ebay, where they pretty consistently sell for $75 - $100. I use them as straight up non-RAID eight port SATA controllers because they're vastly cheaper than 8-port 3ware cards.
Perc6s on Ebay usually sell for around $200.
I do not see a reason why anyone would want to buy an 8 port SAS controller unless they legitimately want to run eight drives at once. SAS doesn't make the drives any faster or more reliable. It's just an inexpensive way to get a bunch of ports.
Perc6s on Ebay usually sell for around $200.
I do not see a reason why anyone would want to buy an 8 port SAS controller unless they legitimately want to run eight drives at once. SAS doesn't make the drives any faster or more reliable. It's just an inexpensive way to get a bunch of ports.
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
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Sorry you took my remarks personally. Not intended that way.
I took your advice on the Seagate, and, for the same reasons, it's at 97% formatted right now. I'm using it in a Granite Digital removeable drive setup.
The price to gigabyte ratio was too good.
As for the packaging: It came inside a plastic box, wrapped securely and tapped in bubble rap, suspended neatly in the middle of the the box. Looked like really good wrapping to me.
The reason I'm intrested in SAS, and Raid controllers in particular is I don't see much of a point in buying a SSD, until I can Raid 0 2-8 of them. I'm looking at all angles to try and find a beer budget solution to a champagne problem.
I have PCI-X slots, one of which is occupied,• 1x 64-bit 133/100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slot
with a megaraid 320 1 LSI raid card, running a 5 drive Supermicro SCA backplane.
That leaves
2x 64-bit 100/66MHz PCI-X (3.3V) slots
• 2x 32-bit 33MHz PCI-X (5V) slots
No PCI E slots, but, the Perc solution is one I had not considered, nor SAS for all, or most of the reasons posted above.
However, with the advent of SSD's, a one slot solution is certainly appealing.
For my uses, very few programs max out my processors. Heck, most don't really go near 50%, or combination of programs.
It's not really a gaming machine, though I do watch a lot of video on it, and, it works fine for that.
As for Storage, I have about 10 open internal hard drive bays I haven't used. The reason is
without 'green', low heat drives, the case gets too hot, unless I use high speed, noisy fans.
Currently, with all the fans stealth, and the box setup, and placement, I can't even hear it.
The noise was coming from an Antec squirrel cage slot fan. Without that, the machine is whisper quiet, despite some thinking SCSI drives are noisy.
Now, it would be REAL neat to be able to take those unused bays and raid 0 a bunch of SSD drives.
I'm looking at different angles to do this, and exploring all possibilities. SAS Raid cards, if I had a PCI E slot look like they are a cost effective way of doing this, not to mention I might fill a few of those slots with 1.5 or 2 TB drives for storage.
If I could find, like Sechs gave to good will, a PCI X setup, cheap, with a Raid card for
a great price, and with a bunch of drives that could be raided, I would setup a Raid 0 with the drives just for fun, or, to get rid of my crappy PCI SATA card, and be able to raid
SATA/SAS/SSD cards as I find such deals would be great.
One of the things I REALLY like about enterprise stuff is the refurbished drives that become around for very little money, are actually tested, reliable, and very fast for the money.
With a bit of shopping, I've been able to find a wide variety of inexpensive SCSI drives, both 10k and 15k.
Having options is a great thing, as is forward compatibility.
Torrents is one of the reasons for needing a big boot drive, though I have a work around in place.
"Greg, I know you have a fascination with enterprise hardware, but you don't actually need it. That's what we keep trying to tell you. I understand wanting a faster computer and not wanting to buy crappy hardware, but you need to understand you keep bringing up diesel engine trucks when what you really want is a reliable sports car.
SAS in particular is a handy way to get a lot of ports to stick drives on. The performance benefit is fairly minimal unless you're looking at overpriced, low capacity 15k drives... and if you're looking at those and you're not running a datacenter you should at least be looking at overpriced, low capacity MLC SSDs instead."
"I do not see a reason why anyone would want to buy an 8 port SAS controller unless they legitimately want to run eight drives at once. SAS doesn't make the drives any faster or more reliable. It's just an inexpensive way to get a bunch of ports."
Sam:
How about if your current SATA card is a POS that is SATA 1, and, it has USB ports on it that don't work? Also, it has only 2 SATA connections, and no Raid support, and one of the connections is used for my removeable SATA drive storage.
If the Perc cards were PCI-X, they would be perfect. Later, when the prices come down on SSD's, I can Raid 0 a bunch of them for a boot drive.
I would like a SATA raid card, PCI-X, that I could use for multiple connections, and, maybe later, setting up a bunch of SSDS in raid 0.
In the short term, while supply and demand, and Intel govern SSD pricing, I'm not likely to change my setup unless a drive dies.
I can't help but think increasing the hard drive speed by 4x would yield the biggest performance gain possible with this setup.
Anyway, thanks to most for the helpful suggestions, and information.
GS
Change utorrent's working directory and file save directory to another drive letter, that's what I did.
I get your point on most of the stuff but I don't hold your fascination with re-certified drives. Also PCI-X is going away isn't it, now with PCIE it's considered a legacy connection isn't it? Maybe look toward updating the motherboard in question?
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
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Yes, I have done that. I just cleared a drive to use for torrents.
Your right about PCI-X, and there are about two cards for it, 3ware 8 and 16 ports, ranging used about 100 bucks to 400 new.
That would certainly make one consider a new motherboard, or a single drive with a SATA 3 card.
Odd part is I really just don't have any use for a different motherboard/cpu combo right now. There really isn't anything I do that these processors won't do, and do with plenty of room.
Now may not be the time anyway....
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
It looks to me like you're trying to find a champagne problem for a boxed wine solution. Why do you have to wait until you can go super silly fast when you could go crazy fast now?
You need to get out of this mindset of, I have all of this infrastructure and should use it. You don't need technology security blankets anymore.
Pick the best solution that fits your budget. Throw away all of the slots, cards, and drives that you already have if you can get to a better place without them. They're a sunk cost.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Why is SAS so difficult to set up? Do you still have to set jumpers on each drive? Or is 'plug-n-play' like a SATA hard drive?