# Will I get better speed on a SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power or Single SATA



## skippy258 (Aug 4, 2015)

Will I get better speed on a SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power or on a Single SATA cable?

SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power 




SAS 29 pin Cable to Single Lane SATA Data and Molex Power


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## T-Bob (Aug 5, 2015)

It's hard to give a realistic answer since you ask such a vague question. Though I will try, the dual lane cable is normally used for mission critical drives and called a "fail over cable". This way one single point of failure will not degrade or cause the drive to fail. These cables are used at times to both provide redundant connections to the host and speed-up transmissions but this is not the norm.

What SAS controller do you have? What type of drive do you have for this application?


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> It's hard to give a realistic answer since you ask such a vague question. Though I will try, the dual lane cable is normally used for mission critical drives and called a "fail over cable". This way one single point of failure will not degrade or cause the drive to fail. These cables are used at times to both provide redundant connections to the host and speed-up transmissions but this is not the norm.
> 
> What SAS controller do you have? What type of drive do you have for this application?



Thanks, so would I have to use the 2 cables in raid for that drive to work with the SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power?

A drive just like this I brought:


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## T-Bob (Aug 5, 2015)

First, Do you have an SAS raid controller to connect this drive to? I ask because it appears that you are trying to connect a SAS drive via a SATA port and that will NOT work.


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> First, Do you have an SAS raid controller to connect this drive to? I ask because it appears that you are trying to connect a SAS drive via a SATA port and that will NOT work.


Yeah I have raid software that comes with this board, I have never used it. The motherboard I have is a SuperMicro AMD Opteron 6272 H8DGI-F.
Dose not say in the specs it has raid, now you bring it up. 
*On-Board Devices*
SATA AMD SP5100 (RAID 0, 1, 10)

Motherboard link: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron6000/SR56x0/H8DGi-F.cfm

Edit: The SAS 29 pin Cable to Single Lane SATA Data and Molex Power should work I have 1 coming in a few days... I hope it works... But I was also looking at the SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power as well but thought I would ask here first.

Also noticed that my SATA ports are 3.0GB/s I thought they were 6.0GB/s


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## T-Bob (Aug 5, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> Yeah i have raid software that comes with this board I have never used it the motherboard i have is a SuperMicro AMD Opteron 6272 H8DGI-F.
> Dose not say in the specs it has raid now you bring it up.
> Motherboard link: http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron6000/SR56x0/H8DGi-F.cfm
> 
> Edit: The SAS 29 pin Cable to Single Lane SATA Data and Molex Power should work I have 1 coming in a few days... I hope it works... But I was also looking at the SAS 29 pin Cable to Dual Lane SATA Data and Molex Power as well but thought I would ask here first.


Unless I'm missing something, that mobo does NOT have SAS support and it will NOT work if you plug an SAS drive into a SATA port.


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> Unless I'm missing something, that mobo does NOT have SAS support and it will NOT work if you plug an SAS drive into a SATA port.



I looked up this server Brochure and they use my board found this info on page 4 *•*LSI 2008 SAS 2.0 (6Gb/s)8-port Controller; RAID 0, 1, 10; RAID5(optional) Is this a function built into the board or do i have to buy a 8 port controller, in i'm a little confused

http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/brochure/brochure_aplus.pdf
Key Features
•Dual AMD Opteron™ 6000 Series processors (Socket G34)16/12/8/4-Core ready
•3.2 GHz HyperTransport (HT3.0) Link
•Up to 512GB of DDR3 Registered ECC 1600/1333/1066 or 128GB of DDR3 Unbuffered ECC/non-ECC SDRAM  in 16 DIMM Slots
•3 PCI-E 2.0x16, 1 PCI-E 2.0 x8,2 PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8)slots
*•LSI 2008 SAS 2.0 (6Gb/s)8-port Controller; RAID 0, 1, 10; RAID5(optional)*
•6 SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s), RAID0, 1, 10
•8 USB 2.0ports (2Rear, 2 headers (4 ports), 2 TypeA)
•2 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with Intel®82576 Controller
•Integrated Matrox G200eW graphics
•Winbond WPCM450 IPMI2.0Support
•12” x 13” EATX form factor


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## Disparia (Aug 5, 2015)

Yeah, the H8DG*6*-F. You linked the H8DG*i*-F earlier.

Also, that board uses a pair of Mini-SAS ports. I have seen Mini-SAS to dual-port SAS x2 cables before, if you really want to go that route.

-edit-


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> Yeah, the H8DG*6*-F. You linked the H8DG*i*-F earlier.
> 
> Also, that board uses a pair of Mini-SAS ports. I have seen Mini-SAS to dual-port SAS x2 cables before, if you really want to go that route.



Yeah i just seen that in the brochure RAID Support AOC-SAS2-RAID5-KEY (H8DG6(-F) only) not my H8DGI-F

Do you have any links to info on the Mini-SAS setup your talking about that might help me out.
EDIT: I see your edit added photo.   Alot of the cables I been looking at can also be found on this site:  https://www.datastoragecables.com/sata/sata-sas/ this might be a different way of doing it


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## Disparia (Aug 5, 2015)

Found it from an image search, the link leads here: http://www.datastoragecables.com/sas/internal/minisas36-sasdrive-x2/I3629X2-M-2.html

Though if you're really set on using that drive and have the H8DGi-F, you'll need to get an additional controller and that may not be the cable you'll end up using.


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> Found it from an image search, the link leads here: http://www.datastoragecables.com/sas/internal/minisas36-sasdrive-x2/I3629X2-M-2.html
> 
> Though if you're really set on using that drive and have the H8DGi-F, you'll need to get an additional controller and that may not be the cable you'll end up using.



Controller like this one *Link:* http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2ms6gpx8.php


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## Disparia (Aug 5, 2015)

Yeah, with a SAS controller you should be able to use your drive. I hesitate to say that it will definitely work given that I can't find any information on it besides your picture.

Specifically regarding dual-port, I can't say too much as I've never done it. Just never needed that level of redundancy nor have I had a drive that would really benefit from it.


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> Yeah, with a SAS controller you should be able to use your drive. I hesitate to say that it will definitely work given that I can't find any information on it besides your picture.
> 
> Specifically regarding dual-port, I can't say too much as I've never done it. Just never needed that level of redundancy nor have I had a drive that would really benefit from it.



This site will give you more spec's on the card Addonics AD2MS6GPX8 - Storage controller  

*Link:* http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1758736




More spec's on the card Addonics AD2EMSPCI Mini-SAS Converter
Link: http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/184284/..._ATTACHED_SCSI_(SAS)_C/Addonics/AD2EMSPCI.asp


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## Disparia (Aug 5, 2015)

Oh, ha ha, I meant your Marshal hard drive.

But I also haven't used Addonics before either, I could take a look at it.


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## T-Bob (Aug 5, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> Controller like this one *Link:* http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2ms6gpx8.php


YES you will need a PCI-E SAS controller. Though, I wouldn't recommend the cards that you linked to. I personally would get a card with a LSI or Adaptec made SAS controller.
Look on ebay. You should be able to pick up an IBM M5014 card that has an LSI chipset for around $50 give or take. OH, and you will need a different cable also no matter which card you choose to purchase.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-SERVERA...LER-46M0918-/252023185051?hash=item3aadc09e9b


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> Oh, ha ha, I meant your Marshal hard drive.
> 
> But I also haven't used Addonics before either, I could take a look at it.



Yeah i got the 4TB 7200 rpm HDD at a good price so I went out on a limb  with getting that drive. As there are not a lot of reviews, I did ask about the drive on the forums here one of the reply's quote:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-buffer-size-on-a-marshal-4tb-sas-hdd.214796/


95Viper said:


> It looks to be... a Company in Japan that sells products produced by Toshiba; however, they are branded Marshal...
> The web page for [HDD discount market] shop.marshal-no1.jp
> MARSHAL Corporation Hashizume Toshinari
> Yubinbango101-0021, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Sotokanda
> ...



So hoping its a good drive being from a Japanese factory that produces for Toshiba .


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## skippy258 (Aug 5, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> YES you will need a PCI-E SAS controller. Though, I wouldn't recommend the cards that you linked to. I personally would get a card with a LSI or Adaptec made SAS controller.
> Look on ebay. You should be able to pick up an IBM M5014 card that has an LSI chipset for around $50 give or take. OH, and you will need a different cable also no matter which card you choose to purchase.
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-SERVERA...LER-46M0918-/252023185051?hash=item3aadc09e9b



OK thanks for the heads up, I have been looking on eBay and the cheapest in Australia is $110 free postage same type of card like the one you linked me too.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IBM-Serv...80?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item23544c38cc

Is the IBM ServeRAID MR10i chip any good or is it cheap and nasty?  
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IBM-Serv...ard-43W4297-/281304766813?hash=item417f12195d


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## T-Bob (Aug 5, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> OK thanks for the heads up, I have been looking on eBay and the cheapest in Australia is $110 free postage same type of card like the one you linked me too.
> http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IBM-Serv...80?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item23544c38cc
> 
> Is the IBM ServeRAID MR10i chip any good or is it cheap and nasty?
> http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IBM-Serv...ard-43W4297-/281304766813?hash=item417f12195d


The IBM MR10i is an older model SAS card. It only supports 3 Gb/s transfer speeds. You can read all about it in the link below.
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/tips0735.html

If you look at my system specs under (Benchmarks) is where I have my SAS raid card listed. Also, I have 15K rpm SAS drives connected to it and those drives have run 24/7 365 for around 4-5 years and I have never had any problems.


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## skippy258 (Aug 31, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> YES you will need a PCI-E SAS controller. Though, I wouldn't recommend the cards that you linked to. I personally would get a card with a LSI or Adaptec made SAS controller.
> Look on ebay. You should be able to pick up an IBM M5014 card that has an LSI chipset for around $50 give or take. OH, and you will need a different cable also no matter which card you choose to purchase.
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-SERVERA...LER-46M0918-/252023185051?hash=item3aadc09e9b




My card you suggested is almost hear, but I just realised that it is not windows 7 compatible so I'm looking at buying a copy of  windows 2003 server but will the R9 390 catalyst work on server2003?
Other then windows server or Linux server there are no drivers for this SAS card on standard OS's like windows 7 or 10

If you know of any modded windows 7 drivers for this card I would be grateful for your input.

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/technotes/tips0738.pdf  Page 13 for supported OS list


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## skippy258 (Sep 2, 2015)

OK i have found out that the card is compatible with windows 7 after all.

My new problem is I can not see the drive in my computer but I can see it in device manager and when I populate the drive it says its there, but I can not access it.
Because I can not see the drive I can not format it ?


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## skippy258 (Sep 2, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> OK i have found out that the card is compatible with windows 7 after all.
> 
> My new problem is I can not see the drive in my computer but I can see it in device manager and when I populate the drive it says its there, but I can not access it.
> Because I can not see the drive I can not format it ?



I was able to work out that the drive had to be assigned a drive letter so I got the info I needed off this page to create the partition  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-add-remove-drive-letter#1TC=windows-7

Also download the latest LSI IBM megaraid storage manager v14.0from here  https://delivery04.dhe.ibm.com/sar/CMA/XSA/04zhx/0/ibm_utl_msm_14.05.02.03_windows_32-64.exe for windows 7 x86 and x64

Finally got it going 





Thanks for your help everyone.


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## T-Bob (Sep 3, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> My card you suggested is almost hear, but I just realised that it is not windows 7 compatible so I'm looking at buying a copy of  windows 2003 server but will the R9 390 catalyst work on server2003?
> Other then windows server or Linux server there are no drivers for this SAS card on standard OS's like windows 7 or 10
> 
> If you know of any modded windows 7 drivers for this card I would be grateful for your input.
> ...


Hey bud, glad to see that you have everything working. 

In the future, please "Tag" me in your post when you ask for my help. That way I will have an alert sent to me like this: @skippy258


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## skippy258 (Sep 7, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> Hey bud, glad to see that you have everything working.
> 
> In the future, please "Tag" me in your post when you ask for my help. That way I will have an alert sent to me like this: @skippy258



Hi @T-Bob and all following this post,

I have found that the drive was faulty and the company I brought it off just got a recall notice on them drives as they all need retesting for a hardware fault.
Because of this I have brought 2 new 3TB Toshiba SATA 6GB drives to run in raid a  new question have arised to me.

Can drives of the same type be added to the raid at any time if its a master boot with Win 7 OS on it?...   "or dose it all have to be configured when the raid is created"

I think 3TB will suit my needs better then the 4TB just for now


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## T-Bob (Sep 7, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> Hi @T-Bob and all following this post,
> 
> I have found that the drive was faulty and the company I brought it off just got a recall notice on them drives as they all need retesting for a hardware fault.
> Because of this I have brought 2 new 3TB Toshiba SATA 6GB drives to run in raid a  new question have arised to me.
> ...


@skippy258  Normally Yes. First, what type of RAID Array will you run? RAID 1 or 0?


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## skippy258 (Sep 7, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> @skippy258  Normally Yes. First, what type of RAID Array will you run? RAID 1 or 0?



Will be Raid 1 for the moment till I get another drive so I can try Raid 5.


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## T-Bob (Sep 7, 2015)

I read your other thread about partition types. I use 128k stipe size on my current raid 1 array.

Anyway, it appears as your going to go the raid1 route for now. If you decide to go for raid5, as you previously stated, all you need is one more drive. When you add the new drive to the existing array it will give you the option to configure in raid5 or keep the raid1 and hot-spare. This can be done without wiping and reformatting all drives, though if you choose raid5 there's no going back to raid1 without starting over.


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## Pill Monster (Sep 8, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> Will be Raid 1 for the moment till I get another drive so I can try Raid 5.


Why RAID 1? With RAID 1 you'll lose half your space and see no increase in write speed... And RAID 5 is RAID 0 (striped) with parity disks...   

If you're looking to RAID for performance, RAID 0 is the only worthwhile option. 

Personally I wouldn't bother, not with 2 drives on a home PC. However if you're intent, consider buying 3x 2GB drives instead of 2x 3GB. 
How much will this cost vs say an SSD + 2TB drive?


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## skippy258 (Sep 8, 2015)

Pill Monster said:


> Why RAID 1? With RAID 1 you'll lose half your space and see no increase in write speed... And RAID 5 is RAID 0 (striped) with parity disks...
> 
> If you're looking to RAID for performance, RAID 0 is the only worthwhile option.
> 
> ...




I could not Find any 2TB SSD drives all I could find was SSHD Hybrid Internal drives 2TB in size, I guess they would run faster.  Should then use the 3TB for storage, but that would have to be down the line... I got these 3TB HDD's at a good price from a wholesaler so i will buy 2 more of them first.
But I will keep and eye on the SSHD drives now, as SSD dose not provide the size I want at the moment and is also out of my price range.


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## Pill Monster (Sep 8, 2015)

I meant 3x 2TB HDD. RAID 0 performance directly relates to the number of drives in the array.

You really need about 3-4 drives to see any real improvement.  With just 2 it's hardly worth the time.  That's what I was getting at earlier.


Have a read of this article, it explains everything.... 
http://www.thessdreview.com/featured/ssd-throughput-latency-iopsexplained/


*Edit;*
My bad, I didn't realize you'd bought them already. Never mind...


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## T-Bob (Sep 8, 2015)

T-Bob said:


> I read your other thread about partition types. I use 128k stipe size on my current raid 1 array.
> 
> Anyway, it appears as your going to go the raid1 route for now. If you decide to go for raid5, as you previously stated, all you need is one more drive. When you add the new drive to the existing array it will give you the option to configure in raid5 or keep the raid1 and hot-spare. This can be done without wiping and reformatting all drives, though if you choose raid5 there's no going back to raid1 without starting over.


@skippy258 I was wrong in my previous statement.  Sorry bud, I hope this clarifies things for you.

*EDITED:*
If you configure your current drives in a raid1 array you *Will NOT* be able to convert that array into a raid5 array later. Not without wiping and reformatting.

If you go with a raid0 array then you will have options when you add 1 or more drives. Then if you decide to go for raid5 in the future, as you previously stated, you will need one more drive minimum. When you add the new drive/s to the existing array it will give you the option to reconfigure in raid5 or keep the raid0 and expand the array size or add as a hot-spare. This can be done without wiping and reformatting all drives.


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## skippy258 (Sep 10, 2015)

Pill Monster said:


> I meant 3x 2TB HDD. RAID 0 performance directly relates to the number of drives in the array.
> 
> You really need about 3-4 drives to see any real improvement.  With just 2 it's hardly worth the time.  That's what I was getting at earlier.
> 
> ...



Yeah I'm just waiting on the Mini-SAS to SATA to arrive I have the HDDs and been playing around with them and also learning how to make master from MBR to GPT.












T-Bob said:


> @skippy258 I was wrong in my previous statement.  Sorry bud, I hope this clarifies things for you.
> 
> *EDITED:*
> If you configure your current drives in a raid1 array you *Will NOT* be able to convert that array into a raid5 array later. Not without wiping and reformatting.
> ...



Thanks for the correction @T-Bob, I will keep this in mind when I put it into raid after I receive my cables, but after everyone's help... I have learnt a lot more about raid controllers and raid setting also there meanings plus learnt alot more about my motherboard chip controllers, this has also let me dive into GPT partitions, so I would like Thank all again for your knowledge and help in teaching me how to understanding this stuff a lot more clearly now.


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## T-Bob (Sep 10, 2015)

skippy258 said:


> Yeah I'm just waiting on the Mini-SAS to SATA to arrive I have the HDDs and been playing around with them and also learning how to make master from MBR to GPT.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Glad we could help! Good luck


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