Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Does a hard drive like this need special software to work with a Mac/ PC? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Alternatively, does anyone have a better/ cheaper suggestion for an 8TB drive?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You cannot connect a SAS HDD to a SATA port with any sort of cable. You need to install a SAS controller card into your computer, and consumer PCs and Macs don't normally have those.

The reason you see so many SAS refurbished drives for so cheap is that people like you mistakenly buy them and discover they can't make them work on their computers, so they return them or try to fob them off on eBay and the like.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Funny enough I bought a SATA drive from an e-tailer new as a spare and when I went to open it up months later realized that they had mistakenly shipped me a SAS drive of the same capacity (18TB). So it’s well beyond the return / exchange period despite the shipping error. I have equipment to run it but it kind of threw a fork in my plans because I was going to get rid of said equipment. All for that $300 spare drive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

This is an SAS drive. It requires an SAS controller. This cannot be solved with software.

If you really want to use SAS drives, it can be done with a Host Bus Adapter PCIe card. You will need to be careful about researching whether the HBA you want to buy is compatible with the motherboard you want to use, and that drivers for that HBA exist for the OS that you want to use.

This may not be cheaper than just buying SATA drives. This is server hardware intended for use with server motherboards, there's no guarantee that it will work properly with a consumer-grade system.

[–] Brkdncr 3 points 10 months ago

That’s a SAS drive. You would need a SAS controller. It’s not worth the hassle.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

That is a SAS drive (not traditional SATA). Make sure your enclosure/onboard connector is a SAS connector. Otherwise, no special software required.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

SAS is used in enterprise hardware. Consumer hardware won’t have SAS connections without an add-on card.

You’re better off getting a SATA drive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

just a sas controller, everything else works as usual.