Hello guys!
I have luck of sata connectors on one of my motherboard (only 2) and I would like to extend it via pcie 1x port.
Do somebody use this kind of devices? Is it reliable? How much hdd can be connected without loosing of required data transfer speed?
Regards,
Alexander
Hello, I use them much, working normally. If it pcie 1x then i do not recommend more than 2 ports on 1x pcie. As much of this cheap cards do not have lot of IO possibilities.
Also check compatibility as lot of new motherboards do not work with them.
I have one of this like on picture and MSI Z690 not recognize it at all.
The “Windows systems only” would put me off to be honest, even if you use Windows.
I got a DELL Perc H310 PCIe x8 8 port card off Ebay and flashed the IT firmware which allows to use the ports without RAID independently. Some sellers might sell them already with the IT firmware flashed. But watch out for fake cards, check the seller’s feedback.
To use SATA drives you’ll need Mini-SAS to SATA cables. I also put a 40mm fan on the cooler as it got very hot for my liking.
Thanks Donald!
Do you think it will work under Linux?
If I understood right, to be able to connect 8 HDDs, I need 2 Mini-SAS to SATA cables?
If I just normal user (not system administrator), could I setup this device by myself?
Regards,
Alexander
чт, 18 мая 2023 г. в 13:18, donald.m.motsinger via Storj Community Forum (official) <storj@literatehosting.com>:
Yes, I use it under Linux. If you’re a “normal user” I’d recommend to buy a card with already flashed IT firmware. I did a lot of googling back then on where to get the firmware and how to flash it. The instructions were also different if you had an UEFI BIOS or not.
The cable looks like this and each connects 4 SATA drives
I don’t now how the situation in Russia is regarding buying such cards used. It doesn’t need to be the same card I bought. There are other manufacturers who built such cards with the " LSI 9211-8i" chipset. But look for “IT firmware flashed”.
On Aliexpress this cards cost about 30$), ofcourse I would like to find something simle).
Maybe you could advise some other good models?
Regards,
Alexander
A lot of eBay sellers ship internationally.
I would be very cautious with AliExpress and even some Chinese sellers on eBay – there are a lot of fakes.
Best is find an eBay seller that does not have all 5 star reviews, does not sell swimsuits, alarm clocks, among sata cables and LSI controllers, but sells other stuff that probably came from the same server they disassembled and now sell parts from.
There are a lot of hardware recyclers who do that – unixsurplus is one of them, I got a bunch of stuff from them (actually, I searched on ebay, but invariably ended up buying from them)
Look at the pictures – if you see new shiny LSI controller that never was in the server for $30 – it’s fake. You want an actually used one, from the working server.
I agree with posters above, avoid these: they are built to price, corners cut everywhere, performance is horrible (they are based on ASMedia ASM1064 – 4-port SATA bridge and JMicron MB575 SATA 1-5 port multiplier). It will “work” technically, but you won’t get any reasonable performance or reliability.
The old server SAS controllers cost about the same or cheaper, but in contrast, they were not built to price; they are expensive products built for reliability, but obsolete, and that’s what drives price down.
Same goes about network adapters. Don’t buy modern ASUS crap, buy old server NIC. You maybe pay with slightly worse power consumption, but in one-off setting it does not matter; reliability however will be drastically different.
Edit:
I recommend reading hardware guide from the TrueNAS community, even if you don’t plan to use FreeBSD and/or ZFS: advice there is solid: Hardware Recommendations Guide | TrueNAS Community
I’ll quote here what they have to say about sata port multipliers:
SATA Port Multipliers
These really deserve a category of their own. They are universally atrocious. Beyond that, there are a few additional reasons why they would never be a good choice:
• Intel SATA, which is the only 100% reliable SATA solution, explicitly does not support port multipliers.
o Even WD knows this. When they released a hybrid 120GB SSD/1TB HDD, they could not use a port multiplier to connect them both to a single SATA port. They were forced to use a custom controller that handled both spinning rust and NAND flash and mapped the first LBAs onto flash and the rest onto disk.
• The most common application for SATA port multipliers are eSATA chassis. Those are also universally atrocious in their own right, with issues from bad cooling to dodgy power supplies.
• They are cheap alternatives to SAS expanders and little more than a cash grab.
• Many also do even more horrible stuff, like hardware RAID for the enclosures mentioned
above – yes, on tiny chips with essentially no resources. Yes, they are a disaster.
buy a HBA card off of ebay, you can get a card like this for around $20-30 and flash it to IT mode yourself.
I personally use a lsi 3008, and a supermicro lsi 2308.
The brand don’t matter, because underneath is the same chip company Broadcom that makes the LSI chip
Uffff). Thanks for such detailed reply, basically idea is clear. Russia is banned by Ebay becouse of war. Still I am sure I can find those controllers locally, but I much afraid I willn’t manage with those professional devices you mentioned. Maybe later. So looks my choise is to find motherboard with maximum amount of SATA ports. I know 6 is about standart. Do somebody use normal (not server) motherboards with SATA ports more than 6?
I google a bit, 8 SATA motherboards is expensive top level devices, so better I will use cheep 6 SATA MB and just multiply them.
Regards,
Alexander
Don’t worry about that: as mentioned above, if you buy an LSI controller already flashed to IT mode — some sellers literally say “ready for TrueNAS, unraid, etc” in the product description there is nothing else to do: just plug it in, connnect minisas to sata cables and bam — you have 8 sata ports. No configuration required, it just works right away.
Buying motherboard for the purpose of having a lot of ports is also not so straightforward. You may find old server ones cheap (I bought my Supermicro X9CCL±F with E3-1240 v2 CPU for $80), and if you don’t have yet server motherboard — I highly recommend getting one, if for nothing else — just to get IPMI.
But if you already have a motherboard buying another one just to get more sata ports is counterproductive.
What OS are you going to run?
Please don’t.
LSI will be much better, even if it’s from gray market. Basically, pretend sata port multipliers don’t exist. It will save you a lot of time and frustration later.
I am going to use Ubuntu. Well, I will make market research and come back.
Regards,
Alexander
The repurposed RAID cards are probably at least x8, so that also might not fit your setup since you asked about x1. The simpler SATA hubs are usually x1, but I don’t know if they work and whether they are reliable. The link speed would have to be lower, which is not big of an issue with HDDs, but if it adds some latency cause it has to do a lot of switching or it fails to present drive to a system at some point… it’s an added risk.
Recently I bought this one: LINK
It comes pre-flashed into IT mode. Place in the PCIe, connect drives and you are done. It runs hot though, so good airflow is required.
Maybe it is an overkill, but at least (I hope) I don’t have to worry for it to behave randomly and the cost wasn’t much higher when compared to simpler solutions that didn’t look totally sus, namely x4 into 6 SATA ports.
The card I bought has very good PCB quality - no obvious cost cuts, so it’s probably a genuine one, but don’t take my word for it.
I use this ones Chi a Mining PCIE SATA PCI E Adapter 2 Port SATA 3.0 6Gbps Controller PCI Express X1 to SATA 3 Expansion Card Riser ASMedia 1061|Add On Cards| - AliExpress
working very well
If this is a genuine card, then for this price it’s a steal. On top of it it comes with cables too.
I screwed a 40mm fan into the cooler of my card.
Vadim, thanks for your reply!
And what do you think about device? Total disaster or may have a chance?) Price is 10$, so I even ready to have some fun to try it)
Regards,
Alexander
I dont have it, so dont know, but it event dont have culler, so looks strange.
Word if caution here: most of those cards expect that the PCIE slot they are plugged into has all lanes connected. For example, I had 9223-8i LSI adapter that would refuse to POST in x8 PCIE slot that only had 4 PCIE lanes wired. This configuration is possible on some motherboards that allow to reconfigure bandwidth (often x8 PCIE slot only vs x4 PCIE slot + Audio + USB + Ethernet, etc).
This one is cheap, harmless, and will “just work”, there is no bridge involved: The ASM1061 is literally a two-port SATA3 controller. The problem is – it wastes the whole PCIE slot to just get two sata ports. Perhaps, products based on ASM1064 will be much better bang for buck here – it still requires just one lane PCIE but provides 4 SATA ports. If @Aka985 has any two PCIE ports available – maybe pair of these will be sufficient. Just make sure your OS has drivers for the ASM (likely it would).
For example this one: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804683786602.html
P.S. AliExpress is disgusting: Depending on how did you arrive to the listing they show you different price, don’t even try to pretend to hide that:
One, via search for ASM1064 on aliexpress.com:
Two: Directly to the product page, without all the tracking in the URL:
Not Vaidm, but instead of giving you a fish I can teach you how to fish:
Find out what chipset it is based on. In this case, it’s in the description: JMB585. Google that with the “pdf” word. You’ll find the datasheet: https://www.jmicron.com/file/download/996/JMB585.pdf
Make sure this is what you expect – in this case, this is indeed PCIE3x3 to 5x SATAII bridge. Seems striahtforward.
In the “General section” you can read “Supports Windows 7, Windows 10 and Linux-base OS”. So, likely Ubuntu will be fine. To confirm. google “Ubuntu JMB585”. You’ll find forum posts confirming that it works.
So, technically, it “works”. Should you use it? In my opinion NO:
My strong recommendation – stick to old server hardware, don’t buy cheap Chinese toys, there is no value there, you are just wasting money.
Another thread, this time on unraid forums (which is linux, unlike TrueNAS) about the same thing: Asmedia 1062 vs JMB585? - Storage Devices and Controllers - Unraid
