SAS Backplane to Motherboard Connection

[criddell]

Hey guys,

I've got a question about connecting a SAS backplane to my motherboard. So I've been playing around with putting my old server into a rack-mount chassis. The chassis I have is a NORCO PRC-2008 2U. It has a SAS backplane for its hot-swap drive bay. The hard drives I have are all SATA (which I read shouldn't be a problem connecting to SAS). I bought a miniSAS to SATA breakout cable like this: https://goo.gl/ohT3Fg. 

 

The problem arises when I turn the machine on, it doesn't see any of the drives. In the BIOS, under those SATA ports it just says "Not Present." I think I'm a tad out of my depth so I thought I'd come to some of the experts. Thanks!

[TheRandomness]

I'm fairly certain you have to have some sort of controller card.. I'm not too sure though. 

[DiamondShark286]

don't know a lot about server sata/sas but you might need a boot drive connected directly to the motherboard to boot from and install drivers or your chassis might be dead. 

[criddell]

Okay I was wondering if I needed a controller card...

Oh, I forgot to mention, the motherboard is a MSI Z68MA-ED55 (not that it probably makes a difference). I am booting from a SSD connected directly to the motherboard. That works just fine, but the miniSAS to SATA does not (like I said before).

 

Thanks for the quick replies!

[scottyseng]

3 hours ago, criddell said:

-snip-

You need a reverse breakout cable (They look the same but are different). You have a SAS to SATA breakout cable. You need a SATA to SAS breakout cable.

 

You do not need a SAS controller with the Norco backplanes (They don't have a SAS expander chip like the SuperMicro backplanes).