Adding SAS drives to an existing SATA drive server

Technology Hardware
1

I have small server that uses SATA drive from old computers. I recently inherited 2 SAS drives that I want to add to this system. My motherboard has an onboard SAS controller that support up to 8 SAS drives. I’ve seen conflicting info online regarding using but drive types in the same system.

Is this a valid solution? I have tried a few times to reconfigure the system, but I have not been able to see both drive types at the same time in unraid. Assuming it is valid, what are recommended step for setting both drive types?

2

It’s fine. There’s no particular reason to not use sas drives or to not mix them u less that reason is not having a sas controller which you have.

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3

You have the SAS controller so just make sure your cables end in the sff 8482 that a SAS drive needs

4

I’ve mixed and matched. It works, but there are a couple of downsides to them. They don’t report SMART data the same way as SATA drives, and it can be a hassle/impossible if you need to access their data from a different computer if you don’t have another SAS controller available.

If you can’t see the drives, they may be 4kn and your controller may only support 512e. I also had an issue with proxmox not playing nice passing individual 4kn drives into a virtual environment, I ended up passing the whole controller in to get it to work.