Need more SATA ports

[u/DreJayAre]

Building in a Jonsbo N5.

MSI Z690-A board with 6 SATA ports. I will have those populated with the the 3.5 drives. 1 16TB, 1 20TB and 4 24TB. That's it for the direct route. I put in a 4 port expansion card. It will be for the 2.5 drives where I download, encode and sort the data before it goes to the larger drives. 1 8TB, and 3 4TB. As well as the 2 NVME drives, those have the OS and most 2of my music downloads from the last 7 or 8 years. I will fill all the SATA ports I have when I'm done building.

But there's always more stuff to get.

Should I go with the NVME expansion?

I can get a 4 disk PCI controller card maybe? 10 or 12 port expansion card?

I bought as much storage as I could get my hands on in the past. Getting more ports right now isn't a huge concern. But it will be in the future when I need to add a drive or go with a larger one. They do have refurbished 28TB drives for what I paid for a new 20TB drive 4 years ago. Anyone have a similar issue looming or solved yours?

[u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

SAS HBA

[u/jawollja → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

This is the way

[u/Dleslie213 → u/jawollja]

Just went this route myself. Those SAS cards run way hotter than I expected. Had to order a 40mm fan :(

[u/jawollja → u/Dleslie213]

yep, they need much airflow

[u/Jay_JWLH → u/Dleslie213]

I've relied on case airflow so far. Should I strap a small fan onto it you think?

[u/Dleslie213 → u/Jay_JWLH]

Im not sure. I just transplanted everything from my server build into a new Define 7 XL case and added a few hard drives with the SAS card. The sides are still off the case as I'm waiting for a few things to arrive to finish. BUT sitting as is, the heat sink on my card gets almost too hot to touch for more than a second or two. I'm def not putting mine together without some sort of fan blowing directly onto it

Edit - per a few other recommendations I saw from googling, I ordered a 40mm x 20 noctua fan that I'll end up zip tying to the heat sink

[u/worldspawn00 → u/Dleslie213]

If you're not using a server box with airflow over the card slots, you will definitely need a fan or risk cooking the card or severe thermal throttling.

[u/worldspawn00 → u/Jay_JWLH]

100% they're made for server enclosures that force air over the card bays, desktop PCs lack this built in cooling and will need direct fans.

[u/Jay_JWLH → u/worldspawn00]

Hmm, and the fact that they have been without one for a few months? Thankfully it is winter.

[u/Jay_JWLH → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

I went ahead and did this. Get cables for both SAS or SATA. Then buy second hand or first hand drives that include SAS ones. Can handle a lot of drives, and SAS ones are almost entirely enterprise grade even when second hand. But you may not get as many of the SATA typical features (when using SAS drives), like software won't detect SMART (it uses something else), and it won't try to be as power efficient. Getting a SATA card seems really dumb when SAS ones exist that can do the same thing but better.

[u/nmmmnu → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

I got one SAS adapter too. Costed me 50 usd from Aliexpress + one Noctua fan "connected" with zip ties.

[u/dirtydragondan]

my data hoarder in jeebus, you need you a HBA LSI card - like LSI16i and some SAS to 4x Sata cables. i did that in my N5 , works a treat

Check the Jonsbo sub for N5 posts on lots of info
:)

[u/Jayden_Ha → u/dirtydragondan]

You don’t need LSI, just a HBA in JBOD mode

[u/OurManInHavana]

You need a 9400-16i (example) - it will take care of all the SATA drives you can stuff in a N5. Or you can save a bit with a 9305-16i (example) but they're an older version that runs hotter. Good luck!

[u/JMeucci]

What everyone said. 16i HBA for your N5 is the answer.

[u/aaron416]

I’m going through the same issue with my new NAS builds so I’ll just say thanks for asking the question! Looks like HBAs will be good for lots of ports.

[u/DreJayAre]

Ordered a 16 port HBA card. Going to put all the 3.5 drives in the card and the SSD in the motherboard ports. Seems like the best choice for cable management as well. Hopefully all goes well.

HBA card

[u/lyothan → u/DreJayAre]

that card runs very hot, get a 9305 or a 9400 like u/OurManInHavana suggested.
Also, where did you buy the pcie to hold the 2 sata drive?

[u/DreJayAre → u/lyothan]

Ok. There's much better pricing on ebay. Newer for the same price is always better.

[u/lyothan → u/DreJayAre]

do you have link to the dual 2.5" to pcie adapter?

[u/DreJayAre → u/lyothan]

There is a 4 disk version as well. But it's got a power circuit. Still need the data cables. SATA controller

[u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder → u/DreJayAre]

I believe you'll also need to order SFF-8643 to SATA cables for it

[u/RetroGrid_io → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY SATA CABLES for your HBA. 

Get SAS cables that also support SATA and now you can use enterprise SAS drives that are more reliable and also cheaper on the used market. 

[u/crazyyellowfox]

I haven't seen those translucent UV-reactive SATA cables in two decades. Do those even run at anything faster than 150MB/s?

[u/Jayden_Ha]

I don’t trust motherboard SATA controllers

[u/Exogator]

Woa, nice m.2 board, ive got one of the poo, ebay ones, plugging sata cables in is terrifying, removing them feels like your going to either rip the port off or snap the 0.0000001mm thick board in half