Alternative Hardware to HBA

[NugentS]

I have noticed a number of posters asking a lot of questions about HBAs as they can't get them from around (wherever they live) or not at a home use friendly price so how about an alternative.

I am using aliexpress as examples of these parts as they should be available to anywhere - cheaper (or more expensive) options are probably available.

Note that these are just examples - I have not tried any of these and don't need to in any of the systems I have - so won't be testing.

And no - I have not tried this (yes I know I am repeating myself)

First we have an M.2 to SATA adapter converting 1 M.2 socket to 5 SATA ports: M.2 to SATA adapter
Then we have either:
1. A single slot M.2 to PCIe: M.2 to PCIe (Single)
or
2. A multi port M.2 to PCIe for motherboards that support bifurcation: 4 Way M.2 to PCIe for Bifurcation for 20 SATA port goodness.

For the later card - you could use a very expensive M.2 to PCIe that doesn't need bifurcation - but that would eliminate the reason for doing this (aka price)

Its kinda a single point of failure, but then so is an HBA supporting 4, 8, 16 or 24 ports and the cabling would be entertaining. But this is $28+4*$18 = $100 for 20 ports which isn't bad.

The question however is would it TrueNAS?
Does anyone here do this already?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Check the hardware in my signature - I run dual M.2 NVMe to PCIe with bifurcation. Works great. And with the price of SSDs constantly dropping and NVMe replacing SATA - go for it.

 

[NugentS]

You are doing:
1x Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M NVME card with
2x Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB (VM and jail pool - mirror)

I use an aliexpress *16 card to get 4*NVMe drives into one bifurcated slot
And you are getting 2 * NVMe to one *8 slot (I assume)

But with the above I (well someone) can get 20 SATA drives on one *16 slot or 10 on one *8 slot, or 5 on a *4 slot, For home builds this may be practical. It was more the M.2 to SATA adapter I was interested in as the PCIe slot bifurcation is well known and tested

 

[Etorix]

First we have an M.2 to SATA adapter converting 1 M.2 socket to 5 SATA ports: M.2 to SATA adapter

This looks like a Very Bad Idea™ with a crappy/unsupported controller…

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

Better look for a genuine LSI HBA than strap four of these [BEEEP] on bifurcation with an adapter… To begin with, that will be cheaper!
The forum at ServeTheHome.com is a great source of genuine server parts at very friendly prices. Also look for relevant second-hand sites for your local market (for me, that would be Tweakers.net). As a last resort, use this kind of guidance to vet sellers and find genuine parts on eBay (available everywhere but likely more expensive than the local seller, even with free shipping from HK/Shenzen).