hello,

recently i bought a SAS controler (adaptec 3405) in a retail box.
it's for raid 0 2 36GB SAS drives 15.4k.

now the first thing is that i've got the controller with no cables in the box at all! is it supose to be like that?

there is a very special connector on this controler that supose to go to the SAS drives. now i was under the impresion that SAS drives uses a regular SATA interface, but i realized that the conection on the drives is diffrant than SATA and it's a wider conector. (contains the SATA connection but has another part next to the SATA that makes it a wider conector) now all i'm planning on doing right now is to raid them in 0.
and only two drives.
i have no idea what cable to buy cause this is all new to me, and more than that, i have no idea where to buy it.

please if someone can help me with this problem, or better direct me exactly to the professonal name of the cable or connector on either end (to the controller and to the drives) that i would know what to ask.

thank you,
please guys i can't set up my sys without that cable, so try to do your best here.
thanks alot,

Shachar.

You are correct that SAS controllers can control both SAS and sata drives. Those cards need a fan out cable to connect to the sata drives as the one connector can handle 4 drives. Your 3405 should of come with the cable unless you got a whitebox/oem version of it. It is a wonderful card. I got my cables through cdw although you can probably find it elsewhere for slightly cheaper. I have put the link so you can see the cable.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/d [...] _-Main+Tab

will this cable fit SAS drives as well?
cause from this picture i see that the tip ofthe cable that is going to the drive is for a regular SATA drive,
and the connection on my SAS drives looks diffrant than the SATA's connection!

No, that cable referenced above is for SATA drives.

You need a cable called a multi-lane forward breakout cable, with a SFF-8087 connector on one end (goes to the card), and 4x SFF-8482 connectors on the other end (goes to the drives). The SFF-8482 connectors also have 4-pin molex connectors for power.

This is the cable you need.

Yeah, sorry about that. I misread your post. I thought you needed the Sata cable. The link somejoe provided is the correct one.

ok, so i've got the cable and it fits perfect,
thanks alot for the help guys!!