Accessing a SAS drive outside a Server

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
peetythefly

peetythefly

Honorable
Nov 15, 2013
4
0
10,510
Hi all,

I have done a ton of Google searches on this and can't seem to find a solution. Is there some hardware config out there that will allow me to access the contents of a SAS drive outside of a server?

The use case: a lot of times we have drives that are predicted failure. I need to wipe them before disposing of them, and we don't have a hard drive crusher. I also want to be able to look into random old SAS drives I find to see what is on them.

I know SAS requires an HBA. I'm looking for a solution that will provide the HBA, and put SAS on USB, or some other useful interface. I'd like something enclosed, and perhaps portable. There has to be something out there.

I'd like to prevent having to throw the drive into an enclosure, and keeping a dedicated server that I use just for this purpose...
 
Solution
dgingeri
There are no USB enclosures that handle SAS. There are many features that just wouldn't translate to USB. The only SAS external enclosures are 4-12 bay things that need an external HBA. The cheapest is $230. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111183) You'd have to get an HBA to even use that, so figure on another $150 at least. A Dell T110 II server with a H200 SAS HBA would run less than $900, but it doesn't have hot swap capability. At the very least, you'd have to get a SAS HBA for a desktop machine.
Sort by date Sort by votes
dgingeri

dgingeri

Distinguished
Dec 4, 2009
2,123
1
20,460
There are no USB enclosures that handle SAS. There are many features that just wouldn't translate to USB. The only SAS external enclosures are 4-12 bay things that need an external HBA. The cheapest is $230. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111183) You'd have to get an HBA to even use that, so figure on another $150 at least. A Dell T110 II server with a H200 SAS HBA would run less than $900, but it doesn't have hot swap capability. At the very least, you'd have to get a SAS HBA for a desktop machine.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
peetythefly

peetythefly

Honorable
Nov 15, 2013
4
0
10,510


Ok, thanks for the quick reply. That was my fear. I guess keeping an old server that has an HBA and can take SAS drives is going to be the best solution.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom