M.2 to SATA expansion card?

[TheDreadPirate]

I was looking at a like for like upgrade of my Jellyfin server to enable me to encode my library with AV1 and still have accelerated transcoding.  I've seen a bunch of boards based around the Intel N95, which is pretty much a 1-to-1 upgrade for my J4205, but all the boards have a single SATA connector.  I need four.  I can't find any HBA cards that have 1x connectors, what all these N95 boards have.

I then found this M.2 to SATA expander (see attached image).  Has anyone tried them?

[Marc Brooks (IDisposable)]

Not exactly what you asked, but I've had good luck with this in my server https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L8L...UTF8&psc=1

[TheDreadPirate]

Not exactly what you asked, but I've had good luck with this in my server https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L8L...UTF8&psc=1

The problem is that these new Intel N95 ITX boards only have a single 1X PCI-E slot and a single SATA connector. And I need 4 SATA connectors.  And all the HBA cards I can find are use a 4x PCI-E.  Hence thinking of trying to use the M.2 to SATA adapter doo-dad when I do decide to upgrade my server.

[TheDreadPirate]

Ignore me. Asrock makes an N100, even better, ITX board with a flippin' 4x slot. Hallelujah.

Edit: But it is powered via a DC barrel jack...weird....

Now I need to give this more thought about how I use this.

[Revv23]

I swear I just saw a LVL1 Tech video where wendell just was messing around with something like this...

Maybe this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWaIh1xuQkk

Edit - wasn't that video but I think what you might want to look into is a PCI- SAS adapter.

Something like this maybe?  link

I am not personally experienced but I believe you can put 4 SATA drives on each SAS adapter meaning that card would give you and extra 8x sata port. Here is a link to the cable: cable

Again this was like 20 min of research never tried this stuff make sure you know it'll work before you buy.

edit 2 - fixed links

[Revv23]

Oh my I was still thinking of this today and for some reason I never thought to search for m2 SAS adapters.

10 bucks!

https://www.amazon.com/U-2-Mini-SFF-8643...B01N6O0SXU

[TheDreadPirate]

Even better than the Asrock N100DC. The Asrock N100M. mATX, which is fine. The case my J4205 is in can support it. Standard ATX power. Still only 2 SATA ports, but it has a full length 16x slot! No more limits on what kind of SATA expansion card I can use.

Problem solved.

Edit: Looks like finding one is going to be hard....

[ZeroCool]

Even better than the Asrock N100DC.  The Asrock N100M.  mATX, which is fine.  The case my J4205 is in can support it.  Standard ATX power.  Still only 2 SATA ports, but it has a full length 16x slot!  No more limits on what kind of SATA expansion card I can use.

Problem solved.

Edit:  Looks like finding one is going to be hard....

I haven't looked it up, but from memory this is / was the following PCIe configuration: (it's nearly midnight for me, so if I remember & have the inclination tomorrow I might look it up to remind myself)

• PCIe x1
  

• PCIe x4 (x16 physical)
  

• PCIe x1
  

To go down this everything in one box route, I feel like the AMD 58xx type boards are better since you have 3x M.2 (PCIe x4), while still having the ultra low power consumption and the crazy horsepower of the 58xx series. And using an M.2 to PCIe x4 adaptor & running the SAS out to a JBOD the SAS cards aren't much cheaper, more reliable, perform better and will take to being multiplied a lot better. Don't forget to saturate the 4x 2.5Gb links, you'd only need between 6 and 10 drives.

[TheDreadPirate]

Even better than the Asrock N100DC.  The Asrock N100M.  mATX, which is fine.  The case my J4205 is in can support it.  Standard ATX power.  Still only 2 SATA ports, but it has a full length 16x slot!  No more limits on what kind of SATA expansion card I can use.

Problem solved.

Edit:  Looks like finding one is going to be hard....

I haven't looked it up, but from memory this is / was the following PCIe configuration: (it's nearly midnight for me, so if I remember & have the inclination tomorrow I might look it up to remind myself)

• PCIe x1
  

• PCIe x4 (x16 physical)
  

• PCIe x1
  

To go down this everything in one box route, I feel like the AMD 58xx type boards are better since you have 3x M.2 (PCIe x4), while still having the ultra low power consumption and the crazy horsepower of the 58xx series. And using an M.2 to PCIe x4 adaptor & running the SAS out to a JBOD the SAS cards aren't much cheaper, more reliable, perform better and will take to being multiplied a lot better. Don't forget to saturate the 4x 2.5Gb links, you'd only need between 6 and 10 drives.

The N100M is actually PCI-E 16x (running at 2x) and a PCI-E 1X slot.  The M.2 slot is also 2x instead of 4x.  All fine.  The four SATA drives (see sig) I have will never saturate that 2x PCI-E link.  And I'm only serving five 1080p streams, tops.  10-11Mbps per stream.  So throughput is not a concern.  My 1Gbps networking is the limiting factor anyway.  Not that I consider it much of a limit at the moment anyway.