How to select SAS cables

In this video, I show you how to select the proper SAS cable wire up your HBA and HDD/SSDs or backplane. Just remember the 4-step rule, "COLD":
C = connector type
O = orientation of connector
L = length of cable
D = direction of cable
If you need any SAS cables, you can find them in my eBay store here: ebay.to/3ZBjFKb
For pre-flashed IT mode HBA SAS controllers, checkout my eBay store: ebay.to/3l4xlch
eBay Partner Affiliate disclosure:
The eBay links in this video description are eBay partner affiliate links. By using these links to shop on eBay, you support my channel, at no additional cost to you. Even if you do not buy from the ART OF SERVER eBay store, any purchases you make on eBay via these links, will help support my channel. Please consider using them for your eBay shopping. Thank you for all your support! :-)

[@mbknightsmuse]

All articles on SAS are really confusing. This video is great

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for watching!

[@Amfibios]

even though i've been in IT for years i haven't messed with a lot of hardware, except for consumer HW of course. Now i started designing a home server and quickly ran on various limitations and looking for solutions. i've got to say... holy shit dude, you do know your cables! this was enlightening, thank you for the info!

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! Glad this helped you out!

[@user-tm5fk4wm3o]

This is ASMR server talk. I have a HP Z840 being shipped to me. Figuring out the right parts to use for an upgrade is an education.

[@ArtofServer]

Be sure to checkout my HP Z840 related videos. Playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ-xj9sTJ8WQXq11YDK0Gxe9

[@gwojcieszczuk]

I wish I discovered this channel earlier. Your videos answer all the questions (and beyond) I have/had, and had to spend sometimes days to figure out. And the bonus is that you're very well spoken person.Thank you.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to help! Welcome to my channel and thanks for watching! :-)

[@johnnybegood8049]

It was really helpful. Having a good time watching all your videos. Thanks again!

[@Phydoux2112]

WOW! This just answered SOOOOO many questions I had about these cables and cards. Now I know what I need to get! BRAVO Sir! Thank you for doing this video. One of the BEST I've seen yet!!!

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you for the kind words! I'm so glad it helped you out! :-)

[@Bmagj2]

Brot his video is amazing. You literally confirmed what I was primarily researching between Amazon, AliExpress and Ebay. Thank you!

[@Sabs761010]

Excellent information, I was just looking all over the internet and finally found this great and impressive video, thank you very much Art of Server, greetings from monterrey mexico.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dracoflame3921]

i just finished looking at your other videos on sas controllers. 20 seconds after that, i remembered i needed cables and i started searching ebay for them when this started auto playing lol

[@ArtofServer]

perfect! :-)

[@davids9139]

This was really informative. Thank you for making this video!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@lightsoul3695]

Thank you so much. I’m in the process of building my unraid server and all of your videos have helped me tremendously.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! Really happy to hear that my videos have been useful for you!

[@brocktyler2818]

I'm in the same boat! Really enjoying these videos right now, learning a lot. Its 2AM now and i'm still up may as well pop some popcorn because work can wait!

[@bakuretsutenshi3579]

This was a very good watch. You probably couldn’t have done this any better. You followed a clear and well thought out concept with plenty of examples.

[@ArtofServer]

I'm glad this helped! Thanks for your compliments! :-)

[@callmebigpapa]

I wish I could "like" this video 1000x. Best sas cable on KZbin!!!! Thanks so much!

[@ArtofServer]

Wow, thanks! Glad this helped!

[@BlitzFingers]

The information cleared up a lot for me although we almost went into the airline flight safety instructions at the beginning 😊. Thanks for your knowledge and experience!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@courtemanchenath7125]

very useful and instructive.. thanks!!!

[@Oceanborn712]

This video popped up randomly in my suggestions and it's very informative. I could have used that back when I was building my first unRAID server and couldn't figure out the SAS connections. I actually ended up buying multiple PCIe SATA controller cards and laying a whole bunch of SATA cables to all the 13 drives in my first server. I replaced that mess with a proper SAS controller with cleaner cabling by now but boy was that SATA cable mess a pain to plug in and also to get back out!

[@ArtofServer]

Hope you find content on my channel that will help you in the future! Thanks for watching!

[@delfincruz6786]

A very well and detailed presentation, Thank you very much.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@freddyhardware840]

I recently bought a Dell H200 controller and didn't realise it didn't come with cables. I didn't even know what a SAS was until a few weeks ago when I bought a used 6TB SAS drive that needs a controller. Thanks to this video I know exactly what to get (SFF-8087 to SFF-8482). I'm sticking to Dell at the time being but will refer to this video if or when I do get other brands because the Home Lab bug got me.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this was helpful to you! :-)

[@adamsfusion]

I'm so glad I watched this before I put in a big order for cables.

[@ArtofServer]

glad it helped!

[@undergod1987]

ALOT of Information that i needed thank you.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@NivagSwerdna]

Very good video.... information I couldn't find elsewhere. Awesome. Thx

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was useful to you!

[@Shinta0SaINt]

Thank you for your time and knowledge! I will support your store before of this video! Regards Shane from Trinidad.

[@ArtofServer]

thank you!! :-)

[@neail5466]

This man rocks..lots of love and appreciation ❤

[@ArtofServer]

thank you! glad to know this was helpful!

[@Jormunguandr]

Thx for info, I learned lots :)

[@ArtofServer]

glad you found this useful!

[@jpulley]

Great video, really helping me with my unraid home server.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad I could help

[@joelc.7996]

Thank you for this video. This is very helpful

[@ArtofServer]

glad it helped you! thank you for watching!

[@travislangley4209]

Very helpful video!

[@spamlucal]

Awesome video. Very well explained

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it helped!

[@vdsw9166]

excellent content! Answered all my questions :)

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks! Glad it helped you!

[@sanatan0990]

This is good information. Thank you!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ZeroB4NG]

Video is the 4th result on KZbin when searching for SGPIO (which comes out of my SAS cable) ...interesting video, i did not know half of that... but no SGPIO mentioned. good job youtube!

[@TuiCatNZ]

Thanks for the tip on that great staggered 8087 to staggered right angled sata!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to help!

[@chjadam]

THX, outstanding guide.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this was helpful 😸

[@betteranimevgmsoundtrackri4025]

Thanks, looking to get into my first SAS experience and wasn't really sure how the drives actually connected. Usually SAS drives connect to backplanes and so I wasn't sure if there was something like a 4x breakout cable like they do for SATA. Mostly the power part I was questioning. But sure enough you showed exactly the kind of cable I should be looking for (with molex connectors).

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it helped! thanks for watching!

[@laurililleoks9595]

thank you it was very informative

[@ArtofServer]

welcome! and thank you for watching!

[@MiladMashayekhi]

very informative. thank you and hail from iran

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you! Welcome to my channel! :-)

[@zeusde86]

i wish you'd have also explained sideband, because you even had a good example cable and backplane laying on the desk to explain this, because this is the next best thing to haunt you after you understood the common sas-connector-types :)

[@ArtofServer]

thanks for the suggestion. i'll remember to include that bit if I ever update this video. :-)

[@marcg1043]

awesome video! thank you so much!

[@ArtofServer]

You're welcome!

[@willcurry6964]

Very helpful !!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad it was helpful!

[@alkhr2443]

Great video

[@ArtofServer]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@BrodieKurczynski]

SAS card to SAS drive cable at 11:55 exactly what I need. Thanks!

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this helped!

[@PeterBatah]

I am facing a scenario where I will be taking the four cables from my Z820 backplane, removing them from the MOBO, and plugging them into a "FORWARD" type mini sas to sata/sas cable of my controller. In this case I believe that I will require 4x 7pin SATA 3.0 male to male adapter 6Gbps convertor. BTW, thanks for another very insighful YT presentation.

[@ArtofServer]

Would this video help you? kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZa0eqR5htOpq7M

[@sprberk]

Well done. Thanx!

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you for watching!

[@iruelkr]

good job!!!

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks!!

[@bikerchrisukk]

Thank you very much for this 👍

[@ArtofServer]

My pleasure!

[@bikerchrisukk]

@@ArtofServer As a result, I confidently bought the right cables for my FreeNAS expansion 👏

[@IntiniOfficial]

Thank you!

[@ArtofServer]

you're welcome! :-)

[@joeldoxtator9804]

SFF-8654 says hello! I come in both 4i and 8i versions! Good luck buyers!

[@tylerkepple640]

Came across your ebay listings doing some research as I am in the process of building a home lab to start trying to learn more enterprise level systems. I got a P420 to put into a xeon based proliant ml310e gen8 v2 I picked up fairly cheaply. Found your channel reading through the part listing for a H220 you had listed as I was considering setting up proxmox to play with vs ESXi or Hyper-V, but of course I probably bought the wrong card. Oh well, I may have to just go the Microsoft / HP route, it's a good place to start at least. Anyways, great video, very informative! Nice lego collection in the background there :)

[@ArtofServer]

Welcome to my channel! :-) If you might want to try out Proxmox, checkout my video setting up Proxmox on a Dell R710! Might be helpful to you! Thanks for watching! LEGOs are awesome! :-)

[@tylerkepple640]

@@ArtofServer yah I just happened to come across that HP proliant server for cheap so I jumped on it, but probably should have done more research on compatibility. Oh well, I'm going to play with it and see where it goes. I have been a desktop support guy for about 15 years, and been trying to figure what to learn to progress to the next tier of the tech world. So I figured a home server to run some labs would be a good start. Cheers!

[@frankwalder3608]

This video taught me a lot, mainly about connector type and direction. I knew what you meant about assumptions. My HP P440ar controller is a SAS 3 card that uses two 8087 connectors cabled to my backplane. You didn't mention about 8639 connectors? How do 8639 connects differ from the 8087/8088, 8643/8644 or 8484?

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to hear this video was helpful to you. SFF-8639 connectors are used for U.2 NVMe drives or multi-link SAS drives. I didn't have anything like that around here when I made this video so many years ago.

[@chrisparkin4989]

Great video, I love the channel. Have you thought about doing a video on wide porting? The ability to connect two SAS cables from one HBA / controller to an expansion shelve to increase your potential throughput? I have heard mixed messages one saying it spilts the DATA and SAS commands per cable and another saying it doubles potential throughput and load-balances across all eight lanes. Would love to hear your thoughts.

[@ArtofServer]

I've never heard that term before. But I have talked about various SAS expander sets which involve multi-SAS lane connections between HBAs and SAS expanders. maybe checkout that playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ-pn6eFBC6AmfbL3yPcBDV7

[@aaronwadzinski5761]

Thank you for this. I accidentally bought a pair of sas drives, and wanted to figure out if it was possible to put them in my desktop…

[@ArtofServer]

Glad this was helpful. Yes, you can use a SAS drive in a desktop PC if you get a SAS controller. If you need help figuring out what type of HBA SAS controller you need, checkout my HBA comparison video.

[@johnger850305]

Hey! Thanks a lot for making this video, the whole Internet is confusing when explaining SAS cable...

[@jimholloway1785]

I am glad I watched this video to the end, lots of great information. I picked up a HBA 310 from your ebay store and I have breakout cable sff 8987 to sff 8482 and connected 3 sata 6gb transfer speed 6tb drives and it works great. I was able to pick up a SAS hard drive and it is a 12gb and not 6gb, so I checked a few forums and was told it will work but will only work at the 6gb speed and that is fine with me but after I got the Seagate ST6000NM0034 6TB 7.2K 3.5" SAS 12Gbs Server and plugged it the drive did not spin up and it looks like the connector is wider on the Seagate drive and there are 4 pins next to the data cable and I don't have that plugged into anything. The breakout cable supports 4 drives and I have 3 sata and 1 SAS 6Gbs 2TB drive and it worked fine and so I tried to swap out the SAS 6Gbs drive with the Seagate SAS 12Gbs SAS drive and it would not power up, so I am thinking the drive is bad?? Or is it just the HBA 310 card, it won't work (at 6gb speed) for a SAS 12Gbs drive)? Any ideas? (no I did not buy the Seagate drive from your Art of Server ebay store, not sure if you have HDs for sale). I am getting ready to return the Seagate drive I purchased it from but if it is my mistake I really should not send it back to the ebay seller because his drive might work and the problem could be on my side with the HBA 310 that does not support 12Gbs drives(and I did not take this in account when I purchased the HBA 310 card, I thought it would support both 6 or 12 Gbs drives but I did not research it ahead of time). SORRY for the long comment/question.

[@ArtofServer]

Hey, I think I actually know the problem. There are Seagate SAS-3 drives that have a firmware bug that will not allow it to negotiate to SAS-2 or lower speeds. I've run into this several times with other customers. This is one of the reasons why I really don't recommend Seagate stuff - I've just had a lot of different issues with Seagate drives when helping my supporters out and have very low confidence in their products. So, unfortunately, because of that problem specific to Seagate drives, the only way those drives will work is with a SAS-3 controller. HGST SAS-3 drives work perfectly fine with SAS-2 and even SAS-1 controllers just fine.

[@jimholloway1785]

@@ArtofServer I really appreciate your response and I am also removing Seagate from my list of drives and will start using HGST drives going forward. I will double check your ebay store to see if you have any HGST drives being SAS 2 or SAS 3. I just got the SAS3 because I was finding more SAS 3 than SAS 2 and hopefully one day I will need and get a SAS 3 controller and already have a few drives.. thanks again. Jim

[@questionablecommands9423]

I've learned the hard way that 8087 connectors will sometimes click twice. I'm not sure the cause, but I've found that if I visually inspect the latching holes, it becomes obvious whether or not the connector is fully seated.

[@ArtofServer]

yes, there are 2 latching "pins" for lack of better word that engage on the SFF8087 shield... so I guess someone could hear that click twice. and yes, it's very common to plug the cable in and not fully seated and experience problems. thanks for watching!

[@OpenGL4ever]

You just need to be carful with these 40 pins. 😉

[@erkkameskanen1405]

Hi, You didnt mention the external cables SFF 8088 and 8644 with the connectors with 2 or 3 grooves. In the same topic also diamond and circle keys to connect correctly. Also active and passive cables are one additional group.

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, I don't know what you mean. The stuff you're talking about might be beyond my knowledge. :-(

[@LeBlueFalcon]

Hey man thanks heaps for your guide this is really helpful! I was going through all video to hit the unique case where I believe I am the use case for the reverse break out cable but can't seem to find one or not confident I am getting the right thing. I am building a server and its now all but perfect Super Micro H110 Epyc Board with 2x SFF-8643 to Mini sas connectors show 8 of my 12 drives after playing with several HBA's to no avail it appears that the easiest thing to do would be to connect the remaining Mini SAS to 4x SATA controllers on the board and this would free up a PCIE slot also which would be good. I went on your store but can't seem to find this not here or on Amazon sadly (Well I find them but I believe they are Forward only)

[@ArtofServer]

I don't sell any reverse breakout cables as it's incredibly rare that someone will need them and I don't like dealing with returns by people who didn't pay attention and order it by mistake. But it does sound you are one of those rare cases. I would just reach out to a vendor that has them to confirm with them that the cable is indeed reversed. I see them on various ecomm marketplaces.

[@SimonHayter]

Can I use a SFF-8643 TO SFF-8087 cable to a Raid Card that is 8087 ports to a backplane with 8643? it seems to suggest on the cable that I can use a MINI SAS HD to MINI SAS Backplane but wondering if I can use a 6g card (8087) to 12 backplane (8643)

[@ArtofServer]

Yes, you can do that. The link speed will be negotiated down to the lowest common denominator, but it will still work.

[@lindhe]

Tack!

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you so much for supporting my channel! :-) I'm glad this was useful!

[@psully311]

Only wish I'd found this video before I laid money out for cables! I bought a Dell H200 & assumed the SAS connectors were like SATA, being one fits all generations. Well I bought SFF-8643 to 4 SFF-8482, these have yet to arrive along with the card, just doing research after the fact. Sure do hope there is an adapter available & cheap!

[@ArtofServer]

not aware of any adapters unfortunately. :-( hope this video helps you out in the future though! look around my channel for other useful videos if you're into data storage and servers! :-)

[@psully311]

@@ArtofServer Purchased a SUPERMICRO SAS3008 FW: (LSI 9300-8i) it appears to be the best / easiest solution. Thanks for posting vids online, been sampling your content a lot.

[@ohohyeahohyeahohyeah]

really nice and informative video. still im confused. can u help me which cables to choose? id straight up buy them from your shop. i want to connect 16SAS drives to my LSI 9211-8l. What cables would u reccomend? thanks!

[@ArtofServer]

the 9211-8i only has 8 SAS/SATA lanes. you cannot connect 16 drives to it directly. it would require a SAS expander or backplane to do that.

[@LoobsLAB-pr7lt]

so on my supermicro x10drw-i only 2 sata cable is plug to motherboard its white color it mean i can using only 2 disk ? if i want to using around 10 disk as i said my server is 10 bay so i will need around 8 cable ?

[@MrMoonsilver]

Great video, thank you! One question though, Do SFF 8644 slots take SFF 8643 male adapters?

[@ArtofServer]

No, those are 2 different connectors.

[@keeperofthegood]

Haha I asked before buying but still.... very informative. Looks like there is a fair bit of wiggle room in the decision process, where Option A vs Option B is really not related to performance but to what you bought going in or the set up structure you want to achieve.

[@ArtofServer]

indeed.

[@keeperofthegood]

@@ArtofServer Ok I have question as I wait on the drives et al to arrive in the mail. I have watched a few vids now, done some google, read some reddit and tomshardware and googled images and my aged brain isn't seeing it. If the connector on a SATA drive is fundamentally different in structure to the connector of a SAS drive, how do backplanes manage to be able to receive either drive? I am willing to bet that if I had them in hand I would say OHHHHH but as I dont and the mail is slow :) I figured I would straight up ask. Unless you have a video already explaining the various backplanes that I didnt find for searching :O

[@plasmar1]

kinda wish I watched this earlier although I lucked out in buying all my cables although I could of gotten fancy with right/left angle cables:P... I have a half dozen reverse break out cables but they came with these 4 bay removable enclosures that I got from computers that got thrown out

[@ArtofServer]

Hope it will help you next time! Thanks for watching!

[@SnekSnack]

Question - Does 8x Activity LED on IBM M1015 works with standard SFF-8087 cable connected directly to HDDs or SAS cable need to have added SGPIO cable and backplane need to support it? (SFF-8485)?

[@ArtofServer]

Are you talking about the activity LED header? It's not like you can wire directly to those 8x LEDs... there is a header that I believe can be used to connect to an LED for a chassis HDD activity LED. I haven't used it, so I don't know. I don't think the SGPIO cable has anything to do with that though...

[@rayyanthamim]

Thanks for the video, explaining a lot of thing. How is the speed distributed for SAS cable?

[@ArtofServer]

The data transmission is load balanced, is my understanding. However, what specific algorithm is used to load balance the data transmission is beyond my knowledge. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in?

[@rayyanthamim]

​@@ArtofServer kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYmViqF3gdZ7qas in this video, he is explaining version 2 and 3 speed difference. Is there any difference between SAS 2 and SAS 3 ports or cables? Also what is QSFP, QSFP+? How this comes in HBA? Can see QSFP+ to mini SAS cable available in the market? All this plug and play?

[@RenatoMartini_]

thanks a lot for the video! My question is: it is possible to connect a 4 sata connectors to one SFF-8087 directly in motherboard, so that we not use a Sas controller? Briefly we connect the 4 sata connectors in mobo and not in the HDs, and the one SFF connect in backplane. I tried it without success....

[@ArtofServer]

you need a special 4xSATA->SFF8087 cable called a "reverse breakout cable"... if you use a "forward breakout cable", it will not work.

[@auxtinmaquieyra691]

Hello how are you? I have two SAS (I think is 8482) seagate ST12000NM002G and I want to conect them to a traditional desktop motherboard. What do you recomend me to do that? thank you in advance

[@newmovietrailer9273]

Hi, it is ok to use any mini sas brand? And I want to connect mini sas hp lto 8 to mini sas atto hba h680, it is compatible? Because the cable package from HP lto 8 is mini sas to mini sas hd

[@minime9400]

I have a HP Microserver gen 7 that I plan to repurpose, not with a new mobo but instead use it as a SAS disk shelve. On ebay there are tons of these dual port pci brackets, bridging 8087 with 8088. Anything to consider buying those?

[@ThaimachineFilms]

hank you again

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you!

[@harryvendryes]

Need a workaround for attaching a much longer external tape drive (lto5) SAS cable. The one I have is about two metres and works perfectly. However, those that are much longer have a metal notch, preventing them from being plugged in. Wondering if there's anything like the active extension cable you find with USB.

[@ArtofServer]

I'm not aware of any active SAS cable extensions. But my knowledge may be limited.

[@harryvendryes]

@@ArtofServer Will read up on what those long SAS cables with metal notches are used for. My knowledge is virtually non-existent; gleaned from others who've gone before.

[@aemonblackfyre4159]

Is there a way to adapt oculink to sff8087? I’m thinking of buying a new epyc board which has tons of oculink ports.

[@AceBoy2099]

So on a cable with 8087 on both ends is there a directionality aspect, or will that one work either direction? I didn't hear mention of it so I assume it's either way but hey.... you know what they say when you assume.... hopefully... lol

[@ArtofServer]

Good question. the answer is that there's no directionality. SFF8087 to SFF8087 cables can be reversed and still work.

[@Jentue]

I learned so much! Thank you! My computer has an external 8088 port, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I need to connect my SAS drives (externally, of course). I have four of them. Do you have any suggestions?

[@ArtofServer]

What are the SFF8088 ports connected to inside your computer? Sounds like you need an external SAS enclosure and SAS cable.

[@Jentue]

@@ArtofServer It’s connected to my RAID card; I forgot to mention that. Thanks for your input! I’ve done web and graphic design for years but I’m very much a beginner when it comes to hardware. I’m learning, though!

[@szzpawnkntrl2018]

Thank you so much for this informative video I’m just learning... my question is MiniSAS TO 4 SATA... is it MiniSAS to both SATA AND SAS ALTHOUGH IT IS CALLED MINISAS TO 4 SATA I HAVE 4 SAS DRIVES AND A LSI 9272-8i can I use the MiniSAS to 4 SATA WILL IT WORK WITH SAS DRIVES?

[@ArtofServer]

No, SAS drives cannot take SATA connectors as there's no gap between the data pins and the power pins like you have with SATA. I talk about this in the video if you want to review that again for details.

[@EngineerNik]

Am i correct: with a board that has 2 sas ports (watching inside of case and outside) i would be able to passthough my hdds or sas hard drives from one server to another to be controlled on one server?

[@ArtofServer]

I'm not really sure what you mean?

[@stevedixon921]

I'm considering getting an HP z840 for a homelab server. I intend to get some Seagate Constellation SAS drives for it. As far as I can determine the SAS/SATA ports on the motherboard look like any old SATA port. Do I just use SATA cables or do I need to hunt down SATA style SAS cables (7-pin?)? Or does the z840 use a backplane (in which case I'll need a reverse breakout cable)?

[@ArtofServer]

The "SATA" ports on the Z840 motherboard are not all SATA. The 8 white ones at the bottom are connected to the onboard LSI SAS2308 SAS controller. You might benefit from my other videos pertaining to those HP Z840 and earlier workstations. checkout this playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PL28eVGz5vFQ-xj9sTJ8WQXq11YDK0Gxe9

[@user-ow6gy6xj5v]

Hi, I have two servers, each server has an HBA card, can I connect two servers with fiber optic cables? (without switch)

[@eyaldror7522]

hi, thank you for this video! can i connect my sas HDD (WD) to sata motherboard with the HBA card? will power work with sff8482 to sff-8087 cable?

[@ArtofServer]

Yes. Glad this helped you.

[@simonemesca9374]

11:15. What purpose has the 8-pin supplemental cable, called 'P4' ?

[@ArtofServer]

It's an optional set of wires called sideband. Used for custom signalling.

[@scottellis3409]

Thanks for the thorough discussion. My question if you know the answer is if I get an LSI9361-8i, can it attach to 4 regular SATA drives (4T in size or maybe 8T). If so, what cable do I need? It came with a breakout cable that has 4x SATA dongles to the SFF8643 port but also has some cable with a 2x4 / 8 PIN socket on it. Any idea what thats for? I cant get it to see my SATA HDDs...

[@ArtofServer]

Well, it sounds like you already bought the card, but I would have recommended something else... SAS-3 9361-8i card is way overkill for SATA HDDs, or even SAS HDDs. The SFF8643->4xSATA breakout cable should be the one you need to use. Make sure it is a forward breakout cable. The 8pin socket is probably the sideband, which is completely optional and in many situations can't be used. The reason you can't see your SATA HDDs is probably not due to the cables, assuming you have a forward breakout cable. There's something else going on there. First, I would look to see if you're triggering "power disable" if those are recent SATA-3.2 (?) drives... there's a video on my channel about that. If that's not it, there may be other factors involved.

[@lordbobrules]

Great video. What is the 8 pin gray ribbon cable connector for? (at 26:00)

[@ArtofServer]

That's the optional "sidebands" cable. Some times it is used for certain indicator LED or connection sensing, but there is no industry standard on how to use it so it is manufacturer specific.

[@kostassarakinos3062]

Can I use sff 8087 to 4 sata cables connected on my motherboard(sata ports) and attach it to a break out and have external 8808 to 4 external sata drives ? Thank you

[@ArtofServer]

A few conditions need to be met. Those SATA ports need to be connected to a SAS controller chip. And the cable needs to be a "reverse breakout cable"... Then it would be possible.

[@miyukiyotsuba7379]

I am new to all of this. I am wondering if we have long distance fiber optic 8088 cable. I want to to connect SATA hard drives to my PC across the room. I don't want to accidentally hit my PC case with hard drive in them so I want to setup the hard drives into a secure place at the corner of my room and put my PC on my desk.

[@ArtofServer]

There's no fiber optic option for SAS. And external SAS cables have a length limit. There are FC HBAs but that's less common these days. For homelab use case, I would suggest setting up the server in the remote location, and sharing the storage over Ethernet. You can run Ethernet over fiber network of whatever speed you want and the hardware is all relatively affordable.

[@danchieev]

HP Z640 Raid Issue Am trying to setup raid 5 on HP Z640 with three 4TB SAS drives. I have enabled RSTe sSATA controller option on the bios with raid as the preferred choice but my disks can't be detected. The drives are connected to the integrated SAS controller on the mobo.I have performed diagnosis by updating the bios the latest version but seems that doesn't solve anything. Is there any steps am missing?

[@ArtofServer]

Isn't "RST eSATA" mean that it's a SATA controller? A SATA controller cannot see SAS drives.

[@haim1418]

hey, i have 8 disk toshiba mg04sca60ea. which adapter do i need? motherboard x99 huananzhi truenas scale as os

[@ArtofServer]

perhaps this video will help: kzbin.info/www/bejne/noXFfK2Hj9BlZ9k

[@local631]

I recently acquired 2 on site professional editing stations that were used in major motion pictures.. last one was Life of Pie. My set up is all CODEX DIGITAL and eachstation has 2 large bay dock stations CDB1 with 2 bays each for 4 large drive bays that take the CDP1 shoebox size drives that have 10 Seagate Savvio 10k rpm, 146gig 16mb cache SAS drives in each.. had i known that i would have done my project differently .. the edit stations also have 2 more docking and transfer stations each and they have 2 LTO 5 tape drives and 2 smaller drive bays .. about a brick size called T-800 that has 4 Western Digital Scorpio Black 320 gig SATA drives in those..and if it wasnt copied onto the tape drive it could of been copied to 1 of the 6 Western Digital Caviar Black 2 T.B Sata 64mb cache drives housed inside each transfer dock..everything went to a main editing station CDR1 and both of the CDR1 had the same motherboard and set up as what i believe was the server... and I thought it would be a great idea to take 2 transfer stations and the server and make a home server, storage, gaming, streaming, computer coffee table....and I Would Like To Give You A Giant Thank You.. because I have 90% of what you were just showing and only 10% knowledge of how to use it..... i even joined 2 clubs and got 0 infornation on my sas boards and portable bay boards.. the 2 CDR1 and the server have SuperMicro X7DBE-ATX motherboards, Dual Xeon 771 quad core intel E-5450 cpu's, A 5000P Blackford chipset, ATI ES1000 Graphics Onboard along with Centarous 2 Lucy 4 capture card and Myricon 10g-PCIE-8B 2S PCI-E cards..so I couldnt see the actual use in the server..so i emptied all 3 ( 2 transfer stations and the server )sanded buffed and polished to look like chrome, turned the transfer ones on end and used the tops as swing open doors, mounted to plywood for base with rubber pads for floor, used the top of server for shelfs inside the legs and a shelf between the legs for support, built custom drive holders and made 3 stacks of 4 drives with fans on each side.. either through luck or ego i tried to keep as many of the sas cards and bay boards as possible so my creation would maintain as many functions as it originly had..the motherboard says it has INTEL ESB2 DUAL-PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET CONTROLLER, SATA 3.0GBPS CONTROLLER RAID 0,1,10 LINUX, OR RAID 0,1, 5,10 WINOWS, Of course after getting everything together and getting it to post it did not notice the 12 drives mostly because i wasnt sure how to get from the SAS portable bay board to the motherboard..or expansion card... i went from sata drives to sas Chasis boards just like the transfer station but without the lto drives or t800 so i have some unused sata ports for now. in the ts it was 4 sas boards to 2 bay boards the sas boards have ribbon to bay boards the 2 bay boards have ribbon with a parrelel port off it...each sas has 2 8644 port...so i have 16 drives going to 8 sas boards going to 4 bay boards and i didnt have a way to get to the motherboard or expansion card.. i tried 8044 to 8088 that acknowledged the drives existencs.. so i tried the parrellel port and it said it only acknowleges sata drives or sas drives i'll recheck and after looking that up i found myself here.. here is a link to a short video of what it was and what i am trying to get it to become. kzbin.info/www/bejne/baenn2upocxga5o so thats where i am right now... thank you for what you all ready done .. if see my video i would love your opinion on what i could sell the 2 editing stations with all 16 drives

[@1blisslife]

Question... the 8643 connector(on a cable) would that work with a U.2 connection on a consumer level motherboard? They look identical at first glance with the motherboard port accepting 2 pcb’s as well(U.2). Something tells me “No” but idk for sure. Hope you can shed some light on this matter. Aside from that this video helped me with the rest of my cable questions. Thanks!

[@ArtofServer]

I don't know for sure... the SFF8643 side might be physically identical, but the U.2 side is not electrically compatible to SAS/SFF8482, even though they look similar at first glance. I haven't messed with U.2 connecting directly so I don't know for sure.

[@blakkneit9779]

Whats that 10 pin on the silver sata splitter?? I got the same cables and my pc won't see my hdds, do i have to pin them onto the mobo?

[@ArtofServer]

not sure exactly what you're talking about. some SAS cables have a 8-pin (not 10-pin) connector that is for sideband signaling and is completely optional. as for your "pc won't see my hdds", you might find my LSI HBA troubleshooting video helpful: kzbin.info/www/bejne/inSXdaKsfsh6grc

[@betyar1992]

Thank You very much. I've learned a lot in your interesting video. I have an Adaptec/Microsemi SmartRAID 3101-4i with SFF-8643 connector and I want it connect it first to 2 SAS 12 Gb/s SSD disks and create a RAID 1 array. Later 4 SAS 12 Gb/s SSD and a RAID 10 (1+0) array. The cables I found, can only 6 Gb/s. On the disk site is 4x SAS SFF-8482 + 4x 4 pin molex for the power. Is the right connection to have the full data speed? Thank You for Your answer.

[@ArtofServer]

I don't know much about that RAID controller. But usually as long as the wires are connected, and both controller and storage device can negotiate the speed, it should support SAS-3.

[@betyar1992]

Thank You very much!

[@BeefIngot]

Totally off topic, but I remember hearing a while ago that anti static bags being good for motherboard testing is a bit of an urban myth. The logic was that because the outside is actually somewhat metallic/conductive, it could very well cause shorts when power is applied.

[@ArtofServer]

I don't know how true that is as i haven't really investigated, but logically it would seem to make sense. The m/b you see on the table were not being powered on in that situation. They were just temporarily placed on the table as I was building out some servers and had to pull them out of a Supermicro chassis.

[@SheeplessNW6]

I hate those PCB-mounted 8087 connectors, at least as Dell use them. The metal shield is quite flimsy, and I've had a couple of servers where the cable has pulled the shield out of the PCB, because the little "fingers" weren't soldered.

[@ArtofServer]

yeah, i've seen that too. and once they are soldered in, they are very difficult to get back out should you need to replace them. those "fingers" are barbed I think, so they just don't come back out and will break before they come out, leaving the hole filled.

[@labfreak18]

So, if i want to match H310 with Dell r710, i need 8087, and what lenght and orientation? Thanks

[@ArtofServer]

You probably want to watch this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpvCd5mahcuMg5Y

[@angelagrant1804]

I have 6 12TB SAS hard drives, and I like to install them in my case. my question is what would I need to make this project work. I see the controller what about power to the drives?

[@ArtofServer]

If you're cabling directly to SAS drives, the cable usually has power inputs to provide power to the SAS drives. I mention an example of that in this video. Just make sure you provide power to the cable.

[@alkhr2443]

what type of connector i need for smarthba2100 24i , plz adivse

[@ArtofServer]

You are asking about Microsemi SmartHBA 2100-24i? If so, those look like SFF-8643 connectors.

[@LichtTempler]

What if my motherboard has SAS controller onboard and it got SATA connectors for that controller (X10SL7-F). Can I use usual SATA cables to connect it to backplane wth sata ports?

[@ArtofServer]

yes

[@LichtTempler]

@@ArtofServer Thanks!

[@ewenchan1239]

What's the SAS sideband cable for?

[@ArtofServer]

Usually to connect to SAS backplanes and allows additional signaling between the HBA and backplane.

[@jondearden5114]

Thanks for the great video. But I am still confused on a point that experts will likely roll their eyes at. I want to support 8 internal 2.5" SAS drives at 12 G/s. I'd like to use an HBA such as SAS9302-8i. So on the controller I am going to plug in a SFF-8643 cable end, and on the other end... what end for the drive-side cable? What's confusing me is how the drives get their power. I was thinking that they get powered through this cable without the need for separate power supply because I have seen cables with wide ends on the drive side that extend over both the data and power pins. Perhaps that is crazy talk and I need to power the drives via a separate cables. Help!!!!! :)

[@ArtofServer]

re-watch this segment of the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYiXYmx-rLpqqck

[@jondearden5114]

@@ArtofServer Thanks very much! The fog clears.

[@ArtofServer]

Glad to hear it.

[@nickwatkins99]

Why does no-one make any cables with female SAS connectors? I have a server with a proprietary SAS-SATA breakout cable built into the cage, I'd just like to extend from the SAS 8087 connecter and maybe have the terminal connector as an 8088 but no one seems to make any cables with a female SAS-8087 end to allow me to extend the proprietary cable!