I’m looking at some common desktop motherboards and a lot of them only have like 2 or 4 SATA ports.

How do people connect 10 hard drive disks to something like this? Or do I have to purchase an Enterprise Server Motherboard to support this use case?

I’m trying to build my own NAS/media center and I want a ton of storage.

  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    20 days ago

    DO NOT USE REGULAR PCI-E CARDS THAT ADD SATA PORTS. Many are unreliable. What you want is called a SAS Host Bus Adapter card and you want to get one that’s pre-flashed in IT mode.

    The LSI 9207 is a good choice.

    Make sure you get the correct SAS to SATA cables and you are set. You can add 8 to 16 SATA drives with a single, high speed, and reliable card.

    • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      20 days ago

      An HBA does not need to be flashed. A RAID controller does, so that it performs as an HBA and not a RAID controller.

    • a1studmuffin@aussie.zoneEnglish
      0·
      19 days ago

      Piggybacking off this, it’s worth noting if you’re adding SAS capability to your PC via one of these cards, you can look into used enterprise SAS HDDs for cheap. They’re often sold in bulk - I just picked up 72TB (12x6TB) of 7200RPM drives for AUD480 total. Availability is very region-specific and of course it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the risk for your needs, but if you’re using RAID6 or equivalent (capable of handling two dead drives at once) the risk is minimal. Be sure to buy from sellers with a warranty (12 months minimum), and check the drives once they arrive. But in general enterprise drives are MUCH more resilient than consumer drives.