2024-08-20, 05:05 PM
Hello everyone! I'm new to the forums but have been running Jellyfin on my old desktop for about a month and am really happy with how it's going so far. However, I'm running out of SATA ports on my Asrock B450m HDV, so I'm thinking of using the PCIe x1 slot to add a SATA expansion card. Since I'm new to large-scale media storage and data hoarding, I have a few questions. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
While researching PCIe SATA expansion cards, I noticed that most controllers come with 2 to 4 ports. However, some manufacturers add port multipliers to extend the number of ports to 6, 10, or more. From what I’ve read, these multipliers aren't popular because they split the bandwidth of the original port. Also that the multiplied ports can't be accessed simultaneously, which might cause data issues (am not too sure of this one). Despite these drawbacks, the idea of extra SATA ports is too tantalizing so, for my peace of mind: Is it a bad idea to use a PCIe SATA expansion card with multiplied ports solely for Jellyfin media storage?
Also I know that PCIe 2.0 has a maximum bandwidth of 500 Mbps, which could bottleneck the drives if more than two 200 Mbps HDDs are running at full capacity. However, based on the info on task manager, even when streaming to multiple devices at 1080p/60 Mbps, the drive workloads seem very low, sometimes close to cero. If I connect, say 6 HDDs, is it even likely that they would hit the 500 Mbps bottleneck when used just for Jellyfin? (FYI: The PC has an old AMD RX580 installed with hardware acceleration enabled, and I have a 300/50 download/upload internet speed).
While researching PCIe SATA expansion cards, I noticed that most controllers come with 2 to 4 ports. However, some manufacturers add port multipliers to extend the number of ports to 6, 10, or more. From what I’ve read, these multipliers aren't popular because they split the bandwidth of the original port. Also that the multiplied ports can't be accessed simultaneously, which might cause data issues (am not too sure of this one). Despite these drawbacks, the idea of extra SATA ports is too tantalizing so, for my peace of mind: Is it a bad idea to use a PCIe SATA expansion card with multiplied ports solely for Jellyfin media storage?
Also I know that PCIe 2.0 has a maximum bandwidth of 500 Mbps, which could bottleneck the drives if more than two 200 Mbps HDDs are running at full capacity. However, based on the info on task manager, even when streaming to multiple devices at 1080p/60 Mbps, the drive workloads seem very low, sometimes close to cero. If I connect, say 6 HDDs, is it even likely that they would hit the 500 Mbps bottleneck when used just for Jellyfin? (FYI: The PC has an old AMD RX580 installed with hardware acceleration enabled, and I have a 300/50 download/upload internet speed).