SSDs of Infinite Resource and Sagacity

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Confounding Connections 

To elevate confusion to stratospheric heights, the diagrams on the left depict the cable/backplane receptacle  that each type of drive connects to as opposed to the connectors located on the drives themselves.  For heavens sake, peruse this image with the utmost scrutiny (for it took me three hours to compile) and check that the motherboard or controller card you are intending to use supports the type of drive you are attempting to connect.  Below is the transcript of a useful conversation I conducted with myself.

Q. May I connect a SATA drive to a SAS port?

A. You may indeed, and operations should proceed as though it were none the wiser.

Q. Could I plug a SAS drive into a SATA port?

A. Or course you could, but no reads or writes shall it execute, despite appearing most attractive.

Q. Would it pay to hook a SATA drive to one port of a SATA Express endowed motherboard?

A. It certainly would, SATA express ports can double up to warmly welcome SATA drives when necessary.

Q. How about hooking a SAS drive to one SATA socket of a SATA Express connector?

A. The diagrams I have observed indicate the pins assigned to PCI-E lanes one and two of the SATA Express interface double up as SAS ports A and B.  Moreover, both device connectors are interchangeable.  You can plug the drive end of a SATA Express cable into both a SAS and SATA Express drive, but not into an ordinary SATA drive.  Though Sata Express utilizes PCI lanes to transport data, it does so via the SATA bus and two standard SATA ports hence in theory, a SAS’s platters should spin to win.  Nonetheless, sans first hand evidence, I wouldn’t stake my miniscule reputation on it.

Q. Might I suggest connecting a SAS drive to a motherboard’ NVME/SS-8639 port either directly, if the board has one as standard or via an M.2 to SS-8639 converter if it only features an M.2 slot.

A. An inspired and logical proposition.  Though to yield success, the motherboard’s SS-8639/M.2 port would need to wired to the both the SATA and PCI-E buses.

Q. Could it hurt to marry an NVme drive to a SATA Express port?

A. Not in the slightest, though a worthy consummation would not be forthcoming.  The speed would be bound by the bandwidth of the interface, which at best would be 2 gigabytes or 16 gigabits per second at best, but most likely 1 gigabyte or 8 gigabits per second.  In other words, a waste of an exorbitant wedding.

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