SATAII vs. SCSI vs. SAS

[Chess Gator]

Hi,

Can someone explain the differences between SATAII vs. SCSI vs. SAS.

What are the PROS and CONS of each type.

Thank you

Chess Gator

 

[imported_wired247]

SCSI is likely going to be completely replaced by SAS.

SAS has a very similar form factor to SATA 3.0Gbps "SATA II"

SAS uses SCSI command set... which is superior, but it is serial, therefore it does not need a terminator as in SCSI U320. Cables are thinner, cheaper, and more flexible, which is a huge plus

SAS controllers are not cheap... crappy ones will run you almost $200 ... good ones around $600.

SAS Hard drives are not cheap.... but you do have 15krpm available if you want a sick $1500 raid setup with low access times



SATA II devices are compatible with SAS controllers.

SAS devices are not compatible with SATA II controllers.

SATA II connectors have the data and power connector seperate

If you can afford it, buy a kickass SAS controller, because you can run all of your SATA drives on it anyway, and you will have some future compatibility.

for more info, there is tons of info on tom's hardware, wikipedia, google, etc


SATA II will more than likely serve the general public for a long time... it has incredible bandwidth that is nowhere near being maxxed out, and you can put together some very impressive RAID setups with SATA II for a fraction of the cost of SAS.

Bottom line... SATA II .... is what you want, unless you are very hardcore and having 15krpm drives is a necessity for some reason.

 

[Lorne]

Im adding an extra question onto his,,

I used to be an advid SCSI user, There was a real fluidness on how SCSI worked over ATA with its true multitasking capability, Does SATA bring this back, Im sure only a long past SCSI user who has used both could answer this correctly?

For those that have multiple SATA drives in a non raid, Can you at least defrag all drives and partitions at once?, This was a simple test to see.

 

[Sheninat0r]

SCSI was the old server hard drive spec, and SATA is the new spec for both servers and consumers. SAS is Serial Attached SCSI, which works with both SATA and SAS drives. The main benefits of SCSI are the possible 15k RPMs, but 15k RPM drives are low capacity and expensive.

 

[drebo]

300gb is hardly low capacity...

Expensive, though.

 

[Sheninat0r]

Comparatively low capacity - and, as you said, expensive. 1TB SATA II drives can be had for around $250.