I own a tape drive with a SATA shaped connector on the backside, but the datasheet says it should be connected to SFF8482.
I saw, that SFF8482 is usually converted to up to 4x SATA connectors, so my question is, if this drive could be connected to a regular SATA port, which isn't coming from a SFF8482 port?
Is there any difference in the protocol, that causes incompatibility between this "SATA shaped connector" and a regular SATA Port?
The actual device I'm asking about is a Tandberg Quantum tc-l42an.
Best Answer
The connector style (SATA vs SAS) doesn't affect the protocol they speak, this confused me at first too. The big difference is that SAS style has the power combined with the data into a single connector, whereas SATA style separates the power/data connector. There are some other slight difference but they're not important for this.
According to the Newegg page for that item the interface is SAS. So even though the connector is SATA style it communicates using SAS protocol. You need to ensure that whatever port you connect it to on the computer is speaking SAS protocol.
Onboard SATA style connectors rarely speak SAS protocol except in costlier server motherboards, so this is likely the reason for recommending the use of the 4x SATA breakout cable. You can check to see if your motherboard supports SAS on its controller, but in most cases it is not supported.