Straight out of sata ports

[cummerou1]

Hey, so I have been low on storage space for quite some time now, and I have been looking into getting more. My problem is that I am out of SATA ports, and upgrading my drives would not make a lot of sense.
Currently have two 750 GB SSD's, one 3 TB HDD, and one 4 TB HDD (only have 4 SATA ports). Normally, I would get a SATA card and be done with it, but I have some different options available, and figured I would swing it past the experts.

I am able to get 4-10 (used) high capacity SAS drives very cheaply, besides that, I also have three 120 GB SSD's that I took out of my rig when I upgraded to higher capacity drives. Purpose wise, the vast majority of space is currently taken up by videogames, and it will be the same for future drives as well (I have a pretty slow connection, and upgrading it would be so much more expensive than buying some high capacity hard drives). 

So I was wondering if there was a way to use SAS drives in my system (perhaps making something like a NAS, but having it connect to my PC instead), or if I would still be better off by just sticking to a card that increases my SATA ports and then picking some SATA drives? Location is UK.

Thank you in advance

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can get a sas hba to easily add more sas drives. Get something like a dell h200 or lsi 92011-8i. 

[paddy-stone]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can get a sas hba to easily add more sas drives. Get something like a dell h200 or lsi 92011-8i. 

Was just about to post the same

 

I prefer using my LSI HBA card anyway, with breakout cables, I have nothing plugged into my SATA ports now. Also the HBA still has one whole 8087 slot free, so enough for another 4 SATA drives there, plus the SATA ports not being used on the mobo now leaves a LOT of expansion options.

[cummerou1]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can get a sas hba to easily add more sas drives. Get something like a dell h200 or lsi 92011-8i. 

 

1 minute ago, paddy-stone said:

Was just about to post the same

 

I prefer using my LSI HBA card anyway, with breakout cables, I have nothing plugged into my SATA ports now. Also the HBA still has one whole 8087 slot free, so enough for another 4 SATA drives there, plus the SATA ports not being used on the mobo now leaves a LOT of expansion options.

Would you mind please posting links? Googling a bit, but there are different results shown, at vastly different prices, and I know next to nothing about HBA cards.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, cummerou1 said:

 

Would you mind please posting links? Googling a bit, but there are different results shown, at vastly different prices, and I know next to nothing about HBA cards.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Perc-H310-8-Port-6Gb-s-SAS-Server-Adapter-Raid-Controller-Card/193414275877?hash=item2d0863a325:g:xcAAAOSwxdVejNev

 

Its a dell rebraneded one. Thats what id get.

[cummerou1]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Perc-H310-8-Port-6Gb-s-SAS-Server-Adapter-Raid-Controller-Card/193414275877?hash=item2d0863a325:g:xcAAAOSwxdVejNev

 

Its a dell rebraneded one. Thats what id get.

Sorry if a stupid question, but again, I know next to nothing about this. 
So functionality wise, how would it work? Let's say I buy this card and plug it in, do I just use some SAS cables to connect it to the card, similarly to what I would do to a SATA card?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, cummerou1 said:

Sorry if a stupid question, but again, I know next to nothing about this. 
So functionality wise, how would it work? Let's say I buy this card and plug it in, do I just use some SAS cables to connect it to the card, similarly to what I would do to a SATA card?

Yepm, just put in a pcie slot, plug the sas cables to something and the drive will show up in your system like any other hdd.

[paddy-stone]

I got this one  https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9211-8i-Internal-SAS-SATA-6Gbps-8-Ports-HBA-PCI-E-RAID-Controller-Card/142280748330?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

And cables are like this for SATA  https://www.amazon.co.uk/10Gtek-Internal-SFF-8087-Fan-out-0-5-meter/dp/B01L8ATGAA/

[cummerou1]

1 hour ago, paddy-stone said:

I got this one  https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-9211-8i-Internal-SAS-SATA-6Gbps-8-Ports-HBA-PCI-E-RAID-Controller-Card/142280748330?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

And cables are like this for SATA  https://www.amazon.co.uk/10Gtek-Internal-SFF-8087-Fan-out-0-5-meter/dp/B01L8ATGAA/

Any major differences between the two? They look pretty similar. 

Do you know if those cables would work for the other one as well (I can see they are called "mini", and googling for SAS cables brings up a lot of different ones.

[paddy-stone]

17 hours ago, cummerou1 said:

Any major differences between the two? They look pretty similar. 

Do you know if those cables would work for the other one as well (I can see they are called "mini", and googling for SAS cables brings up a lot of different ones.

They do the same job, and yes they are the same ports on both cards SFF-8087 IIRC... and the cables are often referred as "breakout cables", or SFF-8087 to 4x SATA cables.

[cummerou1]

On 5/24/2020 at 10:14 AM, paddy-stone said:

They do the same job, and yes they are the same ports on both cards SFF-8087 IIRC... and the cables are often referred as "breakout cables", or SFF-8087 to 4x SATA cables.

I messed up, did not read your comment properly, plugged the cables in and realised they are for SATA drives. If I have SAS drives, what cables should I get?
There are a ton of different ones, so I am not sure.

[paddy-stone]

56 minutes ago, cummerou1 said:

I messed up, did not read your comment properly, plugged the cables in and realised they are for SATA drives. If I have SAS drives, what cables should I get?
There are a ton of different ones, so I am not sure.

I believe these are what you're looking for  https://www.amazon.co.uk/YIWENTEC-SFF-8087-SFF-8482-Connectors-Power/dp/B07MXWB6S2/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1U0O14U7TJGYJ&dchild=1&keywords=8087+to+sas&qid=1591196463&sprefix=8087+to%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-7

 

but double check before buying as I do not personally run SAS drives and can't confirm the above.

 

[edit] Done a bit more digging, and those should do the job for sure. If you're buying from elsewhere the important part to look for is this

Quote

1M Internal SAS 36Pin SFF-8087 to 29Pin SAS SFF-8482

if you need 1M cable though don't forget, if you need less look for a shorter cable as having too much cable can be a right PITA!