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My company needs to upgrade a couple of (very) old servers we are currently running, but we are kinda strapped for cash.

We got a great offer on a pair of HP DL360 G6 servers, but the hard drive cost for either SAS or enterprise SATA is ridicuouls, nearly doubling the price of the server.

I remember using consumer grade SATA drives in servers at one of my past workplaces, but for some reason I cannot find any info in this -

I remember the server SATA connection is different from the consumer sata connection (the consumer one has separate slots for power/data while the server one is continuous)

So the question is - nevermind the performance/reliability issues - can I physically make it work? Do I need some sort of adapter for the SATA connection? A special tray or controller or something?

Thanks!

V. Romanov
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    If (as per your last paragraph) you're not worried about performance and reliability, why are you upgrading the old servers? If you **are** actually worried about performance and reliability, be honest with yourselves about the cost of doing it right. Your time isn't free to the company any more than parts are. – MadHatter Dec 22 '13 at 19:55
  • When I say old - I mean 12 years old :) Don't even keep them in service no more since the price for 1 year is as much as buying a new server. The risk something dies irreversibly is too much now, but that doesn't put any more money on the company's pocket to buy new hardware. Tough luck, eh? – V. Romanov Dec 29 '13 at 16:45

1 Answers1

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Your company has no admin? Because:

I remember the server SATA connection is different from the consumer sata connection

Well, there is NO difference. In fact, the SATA standard is the SATA standard. There is only one. And as SATA also defines the connector - there can thus not be a difference fo "enterprise SATA".

YOu likely mix up SAS with "enterprise SATA".

SATA is SATA and every SATA disc fits into a SAS slot if it can physically do so (2.5" in 2.5"). COmpatibility is another issue - especially older SAS backplanes are known to be - ah - problematic with SATA discs with all kinds of compatibility issues.

That said, we really do use the setup you have, too - I find the price of 1tb+ SAS discs to be funny, and not something I pay for my storage layer when I can easily take 1.5tb 2.5" SATA discs and they work. Just adding another 12x1.5tb HGST discs - there is one model approoved for 24/7 and I expect no issues to arise.

Beware of BIOS level issues - HP servers have IIRC issues running on HP discs.

TomTom
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  • I'd assume in a server environment RAID is in play, and isn't there is a difference between consumer drives and enterprise drives, specifically the time to abort reading a bad sector? – Andy Dec 23 '13 at 00:58
  • Well, seriously - there is a difference between Raid capable drives and not - TLER (Time Limited Error REcovery). But hey, guess what - there are RAID configured SATA consumer drives (also consumers use Raid) and TLER can be activated on many others using provided tools. It also has zero to do with "enterprise sata" as a standard. – TomTom Dec 23 '13 at 08:05
  • Oh, and in case - if you want to see some consumer RAID drives... WD RED series is made for use in home / lower end NAS and meets all requirements for RAID out of the box. Many others do too.... just pointing out the obvious issue with your argumentation here. – TomTom Dec 23 '13 at 12:22
  • I'm not trying to argue, I'm just trying to point out that its probably not a great idea to pop into a RAID some WD green drives; even the REDs are a bit more expensive than the standard consumer drives. Just something I think you should at least mention. – Andy Dec 23 '13 at 23:59
  • Yes, just - so totally irrelevant to this question which basically talks about the interface side only. That said, yes, reading (datasheets) helps. FOr examplle the HGST 1500gb 2.5" drive also has a 24/7 variant that is a LITTLE more expensive. – TomTom Dec 24 '13 at 06:37
  • "Your company has no admin?"... Uh this is a kick below the belt, I am the admin :( Been a while since I built a server though, used to work for bigger companies and had the servers pre-configured never had to worry about such compatibility issues. I'm still pretty sure I remember there was some kind of catch there. And yeah, the price for SAS disks makes the whole thing absurd - 3 600 GB SAS disks cost as much as the server + 4x1TB consumer grade drives. – V. Romanov Dec 29 '13 at 16:42
  • The real problem here is that by now you are in some really bad decisions normally. Want performance? Forget SAS drives - SSD run circles around them. The real advantage of SAS these days is that it is a network - and it is a lot easier to have 100 discs (or even 24) on SAS backplanes than SATA due to the easier cabling (Supermicro and others sell 2U rack cases with 24 (+2, sometimes) 2.5" slots. Same with external JBOD cases - you can not really attach those nicely with SATA ;) And yes, the price for SAS is - ouch. I dont see real value except in very special cases these days. – TomTom Dec 29 '13 at 16:52