Reddit reviews High Point Internal Mini-SAS to 4SATA(SFF8087 to SATA), 1M (3 feet) Int-MS-1M4S
We found 5 Reddit comments about High Point Internal Mini-SAS to 4SATA(SFF8087 to SATA), 1M (3 feet) Int-MS-1M4S. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Internal mini-SAS to 4SATA(SFF8087 to SATA)1M (3ft),SFF8087 to SATA
Wow, for being Data Hoarders, almost no one here has any clue about SAS.
SAS controllers will work with both SAS and SATA drives.
SATA controlles will only work with SATA drives.
SAS drives have twice the data connections of SATA drives. This is for dual path. This is very commonly used in data paths for failover and load balancing.
If the backplane you have, has SAS connectors for the drives but only SATA connections on the back, it will depend on what kind of drive you put in it will dictate what kind of controller you can use.
If you put in SATA drives, you can use a SATA controller. SATA drives will plug in and work fine in this case.
If you put in SAS drives, you need a SAS controller. Yes that will work in this case, but you lose the dual data path feature. It'll work fine, you just lose one of the bigger SAS features.
If you MIX SAS and SATA drives, you need a SAS controller. Some controllers allow mixing, some do not.
To work with your setup, you'll need a cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88 This will go from 8087 to SATA connectors.
You should look into the sleeved mini-sas to sata breakout cables (http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88). They're not too expensive and they look much better than the bright red cables you get with your card (looks like a LSI 9260-4i?). If so, I might have an extra bbu or cachevault I can send your way so you won't have to disable the BBU requirement to enable writeback caching. Also, if it is a LSI card, they have a tendancy to run pretty warm so make sure you're cooling it enough
>Do I just start buying a bunch of hard drives?
Pretty much yes. Before doing that though, figure out what your current hardware can handle (especially if you go hardware RAID - older RAID adapters don't work with drives greater then 2TB). If you're going software RAID or something else, HDD size is generally a non issue - just get the biggest you can afford.
>If so, how do I organize / connect them all?
Either straight to the motherboard (for "small" setups, or non-raid setups) or buy a RAID adapter (the IBM m1015 is popular) for about $115 USD and then buy SFF8087 to SATA expanders for about $20 USD each - this setup will allow you to connect 8 SATA drives to this card in a RAID 0, 1, 10 OR you can flash it to be an HBA also know as IT mode (to allow for JBOD + software RAID) which is what people generally buy these particular cards for.
Then it's just a matter of buying the drives and making sure they all physically fit in your computer case (tower, 1/2/3/4u rack server).
>Is there anything wrong with using an old Mac instead of Linux/Windows?
I'm not aware of any native Mac support for the above programs (only because I never bothered looking as I don't own any Macs) but I wouldn't be surprised if the programs that run via Python (Couchpotato & Sickrage come to mind) work just fine, but others I really don't know.
Generally people use some flavor of Linux (I'm using CentOS 7 myself - though Debian and it's offshoots (like Ubuntu) seems to be more popular in my opinion), Windows, or FreeBSD.
Again, go with what you're comfortable with - there's no wrong OS to run when you're starting out and just getting the hang of things (despite what some die hards will tell you).
Google should tell you if the above programs run on a Mac though.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NX1YCC/ref=psdc_6795231011_t3_B00OYB6P7I
or
https://www.amazon.com/High-Point-Internal-Mini-SAS-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88/ref=sr_1_94?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537927377&sr=1-94
or
https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-CBL-0388L-Mini-SAS-SFF-8087-Sidebands/dp/B00OYB6P7I/ref=sr_1_103?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537927463&sr=1-103
But if I had the ones he has, I would just play it by ear. They might work out fine.
if you want to go ghetto-cheap ...
maybe a lsi card that has internal sas connectors (SFF8087) .
a cable like https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Internal-Mini-SAS-SFF8087-Int-MS-1M4S/dp/B001L9DU88
do something like this guy
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/7crrhv/so_i_took_my_ghetto_homelab_and_made_a_homemade/
with the 5 in 3 adapters, and a psu, and rig up some LFF drives.
or maybe repurpose a desktpo case that holds 8+ internal hdd's, strip the guts etc.