Extra SATA

[daniel87655]

Hi All.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.
Thank you for your help in advance.

I have just been updating my NAS, cleaning out and so on, and was going to add two new drives but have run out of SATA ports.

What is the easiest option for a SATA controller Card. I have seen lost of threads about this but no real options or cards sujested and all require a but of work. Looking for just plug in and off we go if possible.

Was looking at this card.

Startech 4 Port PCIe SATA III Controller Card

Add 4 Internal SATA III (6Gbps) ports to a computer through a PCI Express x2 slot. The PEXSAT34RH 4-Port PCI Express SATA III Controller Card adds 4 AHCI SATA III ports to a computer through a PCIe slot (x2), delivering multiple internal 6Gbps connections to high-performance hard drives and...

www.ple.com.au

Asus motherboard model attached.

Or if anyone has any other options that are know to work please let me know.

Would like 4 ports for further expansion if needed. Speed isn't an issue just storage.

 

[jgreco]

In general, SATA cards are NOT a good idea. Please refer to

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

If you find a supported chipset that is NOT a knockoff chipset, made by a major manufacturer, does not contain a SATA PM, and has sufficient PCIe capacity, it's got a good chance of working, but you'll still be limited to just a few extra ports.

The correct way to add ports is to use a SAS HBA. Which terrifies people who've never used them, so here's what you need to know:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop topologies and this kind of sucked. SATA and Serial...

www.truenas.com

HBA's on the used market are typically fairly cheap, often cheaper than a brand new name brand SATA card. Some eBay sellers specialize in selling ready-to-use HBA's with the proper firmware already installed.

Some tips for buying on eBay:

Hardware Buying Guide - some tips for not getting ripped off

jgreco submitted a new resource: Hardware Buying Guide - some tips for not getting ripped off - Buying used gear means you can get amazing stuff for a fraction of its original value I've been giving this information out piecemeal for years, and should maybe have it summarized in one place...

www.truenas.com

 

[daniel87655]

Hi Jgreco

thank you for the replay.

I found this, is this what you where talking about. It seems to be formatted in IT mode which I think is correct from the documentation, so this should be just plug in and off you go yeah.

Look at this on eBay

Fujitsu 9211-8I FW:P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID+8087 to 4x SATA Cable AU | eBay

We keep our promises that we will provide you with the best solution within 24 hours.

www.ebay.com.au

The cables provided look like you can have 8 drives is this true, just a dismissed speeds I assume.

 

[Etorix]

Yes, this is representative of what you want—but make sure the cables are short (≤50 cm), 70-100 cm cables are for SAS and may cause issues with SATA drives. No issue with speed… if the card has enough PCIe lanes: It's nominally x8.