Important point to add. Get good SAS cables (Adaptec, some Dell).
You'd think that if a SATA drive works on a SAS card + cable, then a SAS drive will. Not necessarily so. I got a cheap(ish) 45cm SAS cable for my 9211-8i off Amazon. It worked fine with any HBA and any SATA drive. The SAS drive I got it for, wouldn't spin up on any system. Normally I would have sworn that showed it was a dud drive. It wasn't. The cable was fine for SATA but not good for SAS. (I don't understand how that can be, either!)
Worth noting for people new to SAS.
CONSIDER YOUR CABLES AS WELL!
You'd think that if a SATA drive works on a SAS card + cable, then a SAS drive will. Not necessarily so. I got a cheap(ish) 45cm SAS cable for my 9211-8i off Amazon. It worked fine with any HBA and any SATA drive. The SAS drive I got it for, wouldn't spin up on any system. Normally I would have sworn that showed it was a dud drive. It wasn't. The cable was fine for SATA but not good for SAS. (I don't understand how that can be, either!)
Worth noting for people new to SAS.
CONSIDER YOUR CABLES AS WELL!