On Fri, Nov 07, 2008 at 05:46:36PM -0500, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote: > On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 at 2:35pm, nate wrote > >> Gordon McLellan wrote: >> >>> I guess I'm saying, if you interpret the name "Serial Attached Scsi" >>> literally, then the Seagate ES.2 is not an SAS drive - it is not a >>> scsi drive with a serial interface. However, if you interpret SAS as >>> an interface standard, then the interface board determines what the >>> drive is, more so than its mechanical construction. >> >> SAS and SATA use the same physical interface, the drive mentioned >> is most definitely SATA. Largest SAS drive I have heard of >> myself is 400GB, same as the max size for FC drives. > > No. No it isn't. It's SAS. The platters etc are the same hardware used > in the SATA part, but the interface circuitry is native SAS. Note that > they offer the drive in both SATA and SAS variants. > > While SATA and SAS are *supposed* to be able to be mixed freely, my vendor > has warned me that it doesn't always work out that well. They have seen > compatibility issues using SATA drives on SAS controllers. So for > applications where you want/need a SAS controller but still need big > capacity, these are the drives they recommend. > Hehe, I think the somewhat confusing part about SAS is that you expect it to be a SCSI disk and have the corresponding performance level, but that won't necessarily be the case if its got SATA innards. :) Ray