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I have a Lenovo D30 workstation I'm using as a NAS. I recently got a few 3TB SAS drives and I'm trying to figure out how to install them. I'm pretty sure the computer supports SAS drives, but I can only find SATA ports on the motherboard.

I also have a RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-E to SAS Host Adapter, but it appears to have SATA ports on it as well.

Does SAS work over the same connector as SATA? I found a couple of cheap adapters on eBay that convert SAS to SATA data and molex power, but wanted to make sure I have the right hardware before I bought them.

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    "Does SAS work over the same connector as SATA?" - No
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 17:25
  • Ok. Do you know why my RocketRAID PCIe SAS RAID card only has SATA ports on it? That's where I'm super confused. And will that be able to accept SAS drives?
    – Salocor
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 20:10
  • They probably are NOT SATA ports…
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 20:30
  • In order for SAS to work over SATA, the backplane has to support it and have two SATA connectors per drive, such as Silverstone's DS380, which requires a Mini-SAS HD (SFF8643) to SATA 7 pin cable
    – JW0914
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 21:57

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Yes, but also no. Old SAS versions are somewhat compatible with SATA. Both the backplane and HBA connectors are compatible. On more recent SAS versions, this is no longer the case. (Except through backwards-compatibility and adapters). You don't see single connectors that often, it's usually SFF-8087, which bundles 4 SAS lanes.

Wikipedia says:

At the physical layer, the SAS standard defines connectors and voltage levels. The physical characteristics of the SAS wiring and signaling are compatible with and have loosely tracked that of SATA up to the 6 Gbit/s rate, although SAS defines more rigorous physical signaling specifications as well as a wider allowable differential voltage swing intended to allow longer cabling.

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