Looking past the folks recommending to sell them, it seems you have a handful of useful responses here (welcome to the internet & endless September). /snark Look past the naysayers, it will be fun and a learning experience just getting these drives up and running - a worthwhile experience IMHO.
I am down a similar path now, with a bunch of SAS drives. What I have learned/experienced so far:
- Forget any USB docking stations or enclosures, they may advertise working for all SAS drives but are hit & miss expensive but cheaply made plastic crap.
- There are a plethora of adapters available online that say you can convert SAS to SATA. Do not believe them - you need a SATA controller that also supports SAS. You may luck out and have a motherboard that has the right SATA chipset that supports SAS, you may not.
As others have mentioned in this thread, the easiest & optimal approach seems to be:
- Get a low end workstation or server that supports SAS in the chipset and the drive bays
- Get a low end workstation or server that supports SAS in the chipset and that you can add the drive bays you need
- Get a low end workstation or server that you can install a controller card that supports SAS
I scored a free workstation from craigslist and one from freecycle, for another project on the workbench.
HTH, and good luck!
