mixing SAS and SATA

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zer0net

zer0net

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Hello,
I'm acquiring a server that has 16 2.5" HDD slots, and it comes with 16x SAS 146GB 10k SFF single port drives. I was wondering since I can connect a SATA drive to SAS back pane, in the event of a HDD failure could I just swap it for a SATA III SSD? would that cause any problems with the RAID?

P.S: it has 2x HP P410i/256MB RAID controller

Thank you
 
Solution
choucove
While you can use a combination of SAS and SATA hard drives running on the same controller, you cannot mix them in the same array. This means that if the hard drives are configured together in any sort of array, you would need to replace that SAS hard drive with an identical SAS hard drive. However, if all of the drives are independent (not belonging to any array) then you could switch it with a SSD drive and create a new array on that drive.

The HP P410 SmartArray RAID controller requires that each drive in the server be part of some form of array, though that array may contain just a single drive. For instance, if you only put a single drive in that array, it would want to create a new RAID 0 array containing only that drive.
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choucove

choucove

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While you can use a combination of SAS and SATA hard drives running on the same controller, you cannot mix them in the same array. This means that if the hard drives are configured together in any sort of array, you would need to replace that SAS hard drive with an identical SAS hard drive. However, if all of the drives are independent (not belonging to any array) then you could switch it with a SSD drive and create a new array on that drive.

The HP P410 SmartArray RAID controller requires that each drive in the server be part of some form of array, though that array may contain just a single drive. For instance, if you only put a single drive in that array, it would want to create a new RAID 0 array containing only that drive.
 
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zer0net

zer0net

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Thank you for reply Choucove,
There is another variant of the server that comes with 16x 60GB SATA 3G SSD.
I intend to use this server for ESXi host and the 16 drives is where the VMs will live. I plan to make 8x RAID 1 configurations. So the reason I was asking if I could mix and match the drives were incase of a drive failure, I can run to BestBuy or even walmart and pick up a SATA drive, where as for SAS drive no one locally carries it in stock, so I would have to order that and it will take time to get here.

Maybe I can get a HP MSA20 with SA6402 and use it as iSCSI for the ESXi, and load it up with 500GB 7.2K drives.

Any thoughts?
 
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choucove

choucove

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I don't really have any experience with the older SCSI solutions from HP, but it seems like a pretty big step back to go from the newer SAS compatible systems to a SCSI based solution with the SmartArray 6402.

If having available spares is the main concern, then I'd suggest looking at some available units when you buy your server. SAS drives aren't the cheapest in the world, but there are still tons of them available on eBay and other websites for a very reasonable cost.
 
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zer0net

zer0net

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I just realized what I wrote.. my bad lol... you are right...
 
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