What is Reddit's opinion of
I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell 9215 Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064?
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87 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
Here's what I would do in your situation:
Put the standalone SSD devices on 6Gb+ AHCI motherboard connectors. These will do quite nicely. Motherboard AHCI slots are pretty well connected.
I'd grab a LSI SAS 9207-8i (about $100 on Amazon) and 2 x SFF-8087-SATA fanout cables (about $10 on amazon). It uses the mps driver in the base system. This combination is very, very solid and reliable. I use it myself for a media server.
You can add a second 9207-8i if you need more ports. I've found the AHCI pci cards work well too but watch the PCIe connectivity.
This device: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00AZ9T3OU cost $15.
ahci0: <ASMedia ASM1061 AHCI SATA controller> ... ahci0: AHCI v1.20 with 2 6Gbps ports, Port Multiplier supported
Keep in mind the PCIe lane bandwidth: 1 x PCIe lane is: PCIe 1.x: 250MByte/sec, 2.x: 500MByte/sec, 3.x 985MByte/sec.
That 2 port AHCI card I linked above is 1 lane PCIe2.0. If you put 2 x SSDs on it that could do 600MB/sec each, the most it can shuffle through the motherboard connection is 500MB/sec. The LSI card is 8 lane PCIe 3.0 so that choke-point isn't there.
I'd add a second 9207-8i if I wanted to do any non-trivial amount of IO on more than 8 ports.
Also, don't set your expectations too high for L2ARC. My personal observations lead me to believe that the overheads of running it don't really pay off until you start having a L2ARC device with a good 5x to 10x performance advantage over the backend devices. YMMV of course, but I've never not been disappointed with L2ARC setups.
Personally, I over-spec system ram in preference to L2ARC.
I think gigabit ethernet is sufficient unless there's absolute reason to need more. SATA II is fine for hard drives even. That's a great setup to get started and figure out what you may need down the road, especially because it's free.
PCIe x1 SATA cards exist, albeit limited to 500 MB/sec maximum theoretical throughput, but that would be enough for a four disk RAID 5 array. These aren't the greatest cards but should do fine (~$25): https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
That would free up your x16 slot for a 10GbE card (you can easily find for $40-60 on eBay). But then you will need a 10G switch (~ $120-140) unless you're only hooking up one PC to the NAS, then you can just do a direct connection. Then buy the DAC cable ($10-20 depending on length/brand, etc).
So it's possible to set up how you want, but that will cost you about $250 (in USA at least). Or just use it as is and see how it fares. I think you'll be fine as-is.
Also, maybe consider UnRAID instead of RAID 5. This would be a great use case for it. You boot off USB port so no need for another SATA port.
If you have an extra pcie slot you can get one of these
I second the suggestion for Unraid. The flexibility in using any size drives you want is great. Been a lot happier managing Plex via a docker in Unraid than with the server app on Windows.
I used this card to expand my available installed drives since I ran out of SATA ports on my mobo: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I'd just get an IOCrest/SYBA SI-PEX40064. It uses a Marvell 88SE9215 chipset, which, while not great, should be functional, and it's about the only thing you'll get that'll give you 4 ports on a PCIe x1 slot. Unfortunately, even with PCI-Express 3.0, the maximum throughput on an x1 slot is only 985MB/s, so if you have four SATA drives connected and running concurrently, you're going to get some serious bottlenecking, which is why you don't find reputable brands making these kinds of cards.
I used this thing. This one only gets you four SATA ports, but there are other models that'll get you more. I chose this one because of the price and I didn't want the card to add any sort of hardware RAID. I wanted to just add more ports and pass the disks to FreeNAS for RAID.
I believe Dell makes two kinds of OptiPlex's. Small form factor and Large form factor. Mine was the LFF. I'm not sure about the differences in motherboards between the two.
If I recall correctly, I put this card into the 1 PCIe 16 slot, leaving (2?) more available PCIe ports.
Depending on your MLB and how many drives you want to add, this might be an option. I have two in my server and they just plugged in and worked, never had an issue with them. Obviously the downside is you're running cables for each drive separately.
I use this to get 4 Sata ports for some hdd‘s, its a plain hba card. But watch out if you use ssd‘s: your hba or controller card should support the full bandwith, you could leave some performance on the table. But for my hdds it works just fine and i can saturate my full gigabit connection with it
There are plenty of FAKE RAID PCIe x1 out there, just turn the RAID off and use then as standard HBA. I have a few Syba branded ones that I used in the past. Most use a Marvell chipset as the HBA.
https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
Note, I do not have this product, have nto used this product, but it has good reviews and seems to be what you want.
I've got 3 X crest x1 sata(Marvell) cards that run great. You'll have naysayers on here re the X1 speed with multiple SATA drives saturating the lanes but if it's mainly media storage and playback you can easily run 4 more drives off of one of those. I have run these on both an Asus b460m-a and currently my ASRock z590 boards Here's a link on Amazon for what I've used: IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_ENENTTR4NPH0XZMHD9P6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
>Yah I was googling how to turn an old pc into a nas and everything was running alternate software haha
Maybe for a reason 😉
How many physical drives do you have in that computer (or I guess you might not have many PCIe slots?) I have a couple of these cards and will run out of space in my case (designed to hold 6 3.5" + 3 5.5" bays for additional storage) long before PCIe slots.
What is mentioned above will work but make sure you have automatically empty trash turned off. Else, if a connection is lost to the remote drives (I.e. when Windows does an automatic reboot) those movies metadata will be deleted (along with watch status, customizations, etc.) and then recreated when the connection comes back.
https://www.amazon.com.au/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid ...
I've already got one so I know it works for me. It is an X1 because that's the only 2 pcie points I have on my mobi and the x16 has my gpu in it
Se la tua scheda madre ha degli slot pci-e che non usi, puoi usare una schedina tipo questa che ti aumentano le prese sata interne
>If it's just a data drive and you're not looking to do anything super fancy with it. These work great.
I had a card with the same chipset and it was utter shite. Seemed to work fine, but I got all kinds of SMART errors (related to data transfer, not the drives themselces), drives would spontaneously be kicked from their vdev array, drive commands would fail, etc.
I recommend never using PCI SATA expanders. You can get an LSI HBA for the same price plus rock solid performance and better speed.
PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS
u/hymness1 If you mean one of those $25 cards like this do not buy these. I’ve had about ten in my past and they can die and/or throw errors easily. You get dead ports, it’s a crappy nightmare.
I ended up getting an HBA card for my big server and a Dell Perc H200 already put into IT mode off eBay for $50. These cards are way better than pci expansion cards.
I have 2 x IO Crest 4 port controllers in my Unraid box. Running super stable for many months across 10 drives.
Yeah probably a good idea and right now I don't have a OS on it this is from the BIOS of the supermicro board, as for the Card i got it is this one : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I am not trying to boot from the SATA card the HDD i want to use as a boot drive is connected to the MOBO's sata port and still wont work
FreeNAS 10 has supports for VMs and Docker, so you can roll any number of services easily enough.
Just be aware that expanding the SAME storage pool is a very cumbersome process in FreeNAS.
Don't worry too much about SATA ports on a mobo. You can add SATA ports easily/cheaply enough with expansion cards.
I'd highly suggest upgrading to the Kaby Lake pentiums, as the hyperthreads add significant performance for little cost. Finally, Plex does NOT transcode unless you're doing remote access from outside of your home network, or have custom client settings.
Don't be concerned about Gold vs Platinum efficiency. That 10% boost will only result in about €5 savings, per year. Suppose you use 100W, all the time. An additional 10W savings results in 240Wh used per day, or 1.68kWh per week. Let's say electricity is €0.2 per kWh (quite high), with 53 weeks per year, that's ~€18. You're most likely just idling around 40-50W for 2/3 of the day.
I use one of these: IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_.8j.zbB9E0901
It works well, but I don't do tons of read/write as I only is mine for backups. I would recommend to get hba if you're going to use it for a lot...going to be better for u in the long run.
Will this work? https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1507177945&sr=8-3&keywords=pcie+to+sata It says non-raid on it so I'm worried that windows software raid won't work with it.
i found this one in the same page as the one you recommend. it was cheaper though. should work though since it looks to be pretty much the same.
Before I got my 24 bay case I used a couple of these pci cards to get me 14 sata ports (6+4+4)
Now I use an LSI HBA card to the SAS backplane, but you can use SAS to SATA cables. You should be able to find them for cheap on ebay if you want to go that route
Looking at this for an alternative to going to totally new server since I have an old Pentium III that does server related things. Would this work?
The issue is that SAS1 was created during the era of PCIE 1.0. Even at 12Gbps per cable (of 4 channels), you would still saturate an x4 card with a single port. It was necessary to use an x8 and even then, it was possible to saturate that link with a dual connector card.
PCIE 2.0 was released just before SAS2 and this basically put it in the same scenario where you can get 24gbps per connector but with 500Mbps per lane. So, a dual connector card can do a theoretical 48Gbps whereas an x8 PCIe can only do 40Gbps. Again, not a terrible bandwidth issue because workloads are rarely that sequential.
So in reality, there's just never been a business need for an x1 HBA. On the other hand, cards like this one exist in the consumer space for just adding SATA ports to an x1. If OP has a 2.0 slot (possible but not sure how likely since standard PCI was given as an option...) then that card can add a few ports - it just won't be expandable and the jury is out on whether or not it's a true HBA in regards to passing drive data.
All HBA are going to be working out of the box with a modern Linux distribution. I use super crappy IOCrest or Syba branded HBA like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/
But I learned from this sub that those should be avoided. The ones that tend to be recommended are the one with LSI chipsets. But for those I have little experience (though many recommendations exist on this sub)
What there be any advantage other than about of ports with this card compared to this one
IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ELxVybXC4NWAR
I put together almost the exact same build a year or so ago to replace my Drobo. Like your case selection better than mine. The only thing I might suggest is springing for an i5 if you're going to be transcoding multiple streams.
I recently decided to add more HDDs to my build and ran out of SATA ports. Expanded with this. Good luck!
I'm running a virtualized FreeNAS on a Dell T20 with ESXi.
You could either passthrough the disk you want to use with your NAS VM (it's a bit tricky and coused some problems like it didn't let me configure the VM over the HTML Interface aftherwords) or you could buy a second SATA/SAS Controller for the HDD which you want to use with the NAS VM.
I bought this SATA Controller and simply plugged in my drives (2x 1 TB HDDs) and did an PCIe passthrough in ESXI.
If you want to use SSDs you may want to use a other SATA Controller, because this one only has a PCIe 1x interface.
With FreeNAS i get around 500-650 MB/s read and write with 2x normal HDD in one ZFS Mirror (like RAID 1) in the virtualized network and at the gigabit limit in the not virtualized network.
For FreeNAS you would need a minumum of 6GB RAM, because it's using the RAM as cache for the zfs pool.
You could also use another software for the NAS with the PCIe passthrough. If you would create a virtual disk for the NAS, you would not have the option on access the SMART values on the NAS OS.
Wow, thanks! This is exactly the type of response I was looking for.
If I was to go with those options it looks like I would save a LOT of money. Any recommendation on what PCIe SATA card to get if I'm looking to add say 4 ports?.
That's just $130 for the case, mobo and CPU. Do you have a RAM (16GB) recommendation? I assume if my mobo/cpu choice was overkill that the ECC RAM was too. Still if the RAM is $80 still that's $210...then a PSU (again a recommendation?) which is probably $50, the PCIe card is $40... a grand total of like $300 for a DIY NAS. Pretty awesome.
No, there's no realistic way to split a SATA data cable. One device per port.
A PCIe SATA card should be less than $30. Here's a 4 port version.
you could buy something like a SATA-III host adapter that doesn't need "special" drivers to work: http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1451841887&sr=1-1&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_two_browse-bin%3A7121424011
> SI-PEX40064
Thanks, I initiated a return with refund to Amazon of the Syba I ordered which had RAID option and got the IO Crest of that same model you mentioned. Hope this works.
Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
Why? These things are dirt cheap and I'm sure you have an unused PCI-e port.
If the case has space for 8 hard drives then you can add 8 hard drives assuming the ssd is not occupying a slot.
The motherboard only has 6 sata ports that's why you'd need a sata expansion card.
The Asus u3s6 needs a pcie x4 slot for 2x usb3.0 and 2 sata6 ports. Unfortunately, your mobo only has pcie x1 slots: with 4 sata ports sharing it, don't expect the highest speeds. However, it shouldn't be a problem as long as you're not plugging ssds.
Sata controller. I bought this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have all my internal drive running in RAID0 to help with disk speeds.
My bad, you can order cheap SATA III cards off amazon like this one https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1500755641&sr=8-3&keywords=sata+card
If you use Storage Spaces, you would want to start with 3 HDD's in parity mode, then file-shuffle and add drives to your pool as you empty them. As long as you have enough sata ports you won't need any additinal hardware. If your running low theres two options: a cheep sata pci-e card , or an HBA card. No need to spend the extra money for a RAID controller ( which cant do what your asking anyway)
I used this one for years in my first unraid server until I upgraded to a HBA card.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I would not recommend them long term though. I saw significant performance gains on the monthly parity check when I moved to an HBA card. I wish I had found art of server and moved to an HBA card years before.
I got this one (Link to amazon.de)
Here's a quick rig I threw together on PCPartPicker for you as a starting point. I haven't done any real compatibility checking so you'll want to do that. You'll also need to pick up some SATA cables, as these are OEM drives (meaning they don't come with anything other than the drive).
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LNHGqm
The compatibility checker says you'll need more SATA ports, because the motherboard I chose only has 6. You'll need two of these to get all 12 drives running: https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
You might be able to find a cheaper case with 12x 5.25" bays, but that's what was available on pcpartpicker.
If you have 2.5G or 10G Ethernet at home, you may want to consider a better motherboard that either natively supports it or has an extra PCIe expansion slot or two to accommodate a card.
This is not a computer that is designed to do anything other than power 12x SATA drives. It's just a bit-mover. Don't expect anything fancy.
Yes I would love to get that board if it were possible to obtain. I'm not quite up to assembling my own. I am using this SATA card -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU.
So I may try to power things with the picoPSU 160XT but in testing I've found that everything works great using the power connectors only from my 4 bay USB enclosure. The setup is big and unwieldy but it works and everything runs from a single 12V brick.
https://i.imgur.com/5pEfiW7.jpg
The only problem was the little 12V power splitter cable was getting warm after an hour due to thin wiring (the actual power brick cord was fine). That can easily be remedied. Now if there was just a neat way to button this all up in a small box? I'm thinking Legos?
I'd just take any noctua cooler with fan, that fits. (check how much space you have)
One of those maybe: https://es.pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu-cooler/#m=99&c=33&W=0&F=0&H=14000000,102000000
But the stock cooler will be fine too, just probably a bit louder.
​
Can't find the specs, but pretty sure the CPU has x264 hardware encoding.
Maybe you can find Benchmarks or reviews to check its transcoding performance.
​
My expansion card is this:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=pe\_3044161\_185740101\_TE\_item
Syba SATA III 4 Port PCI-e x1 Controller Card with Low Profile Brackets
​
Yes, i use the binhex docker image.
The posted video should put to bed all claims of inadequate power supply & burning my house down.
Specs: Asus MATX motherboard with 4 onboard SATA, Athlon 3000G (3.5GHz dual core, TDP 35watts), ARCTIC Alpine AM4 Passive (max 45w TDP), 8GB RAM, two 120mm 2Krpm fans, eBay generic 8-port SATA PCIe card “model PCE8SAT-M01” (Marvell 88SE92xx+JMB5XX), and lastly the Antec EarthWatts 380W power supply. This is running Windows 10 on a completely isolated inside-the-house-only network. It does not have internet access of any kind.
The SATA card: At the start of my build, I was trying to use two “I/O Crest” 4 Port SATA PCIe cards (https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU ), which had the Marvell 88SE9215 chipset. Turns out the way the BIOSes on those card initialize at system boot, it seems like they were conflicting and fighting at system start up. It was a 50/50 shot they’d both come up. Needless to say, this would not work in my setup with all my drives. Found the eBay card, learned it used the same controller, but had that JMB chipset which acts as a port multiplier, hence why it was able to offer 8 ports on one card. And it has worked without an issue with all drive detection and data handling. ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/114291680807 ) In digging through eBay to find the listing for the card for this posting, I see they now make 16 and 20 port versions of the card! Not sure if I’ll ever need that in the future, but it made me drool a bit.
The Antec EarthWatts: I don’t know when EarthWatts became to have such a troubled reputation, but I’ve had the 430W version (https://www.newegg.com/antec-earthwatts-ea430-430w-continuous-power/p/N82E16817371006 ) of this supply in both of my computers since 2007, which was when these supplies were introduced to market. — First it lived in a Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz OC’ed to 3GHz on stock volts. Then in 2012 it got transferred into my Sandy Bridge build with a Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz OC’ed to 4.3GHz on stock volts again. It lived in that machine until I moved in 2018. At that point it actually got shuffled back into my C2D machine which is now a retro gaming rig. With reliability like that, who could blame me for wanting to stick with the same type of make&model?? After reading reviews for many newer power supplies, I couldn’t find one I’d really trust, including the newer EarthWatts unfortunately. So back in 2020, on eBay I found New-Old-Stock of original EarthWatts that except it was 380Watts (https://www.newegg.com/antec-earthwatts-ea380-380w-continuous-power/p/N82E16817371005) . More than enough for a simple file server.
The hard drives: Original WD Caviar Green 1TB from 2008 (like THE very first introduction of the “Green” line of drives) -- four 2TB and two 1.5TB Samsung SpinPoint drives from ~2010 (the F3 and F4 series?), a 3TB Hitachi and a 4TB Hitachi (nothing interesting). ALL these drives have gone from living in my desktop, to being in a server, then all shuffled into external enclosures, and now finally all back into a server. None of them have died yet, so I can’t justify getting rid of them just yet. All disks still report excellent health. And on the outside of the computer currently there is a 5TB WD 2.5” portable USB3.0 drive, and also a 10TB WD EasyStore USB3.0 drive. ALL these drives are combined into Windows Storage Spaces in Mirrored configuration totaling 22TB total (11TB usable). Additionally, one PNY 120GB SSD for the server system drive, and one 2.5” 44pin IDE Samsung SpinPoint laptop drive connected via IDE-to-USB adapter and plugged into the motherboard’s internal USB 2.0 header - this drive is used strictly with scheduled Macrium Reflect to daily backup the server system drive. All this is crammed into a normal mid-size ATX case, and with the two fast 120mm fans I have, the hottest drive reaches 35C at the top of the case, the rest are around ~29C. It’s not as loud as a rack mounted server, but it ain’t quiet in the least.
Cable Management: Power supply cables, managed very nicely I believe. The SATA cables,,, HAHA not happening - I try to bed them as little as possible, and also take port strain into consideration. These are not IDE ribbon cables - SATA cables ain’t gonna blow no airflow. And my case does NOT have a stupid window, so when the cover is on I can’t see a thing :-D
I've got 3 of these, all work well with my unraid setup: IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_apanp_S8k9tP5KwhrGS
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller… | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller… | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller… | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
Is there a chance you could use a SATA expansion card?
Is this a good option for my Plex server I’ve ran out of SATA ports on my motherboard
Sure, sorry...i bought 3 of these cards and they have been pretty reliable...plug and play, old computer, new computer no probs.
> I also have the PCIe port open, but I’m not to sure how to go about using that for storage.
There are a lot of options for this. How many drives are you interested in connecting? On the simple end, you have a PCIe x1 to SATA card that will give you 4 ports, or a PCIe to m.2 adapter card that will give you a handful of m.2 slots. On the complex end, well, sky's the limit, really. Throw a SAS HBA in there, hang a couple disk shelves off it, and you're looking at dozens of drives. If that's not enough, you can look at Fibre Channel or iSCSI adapters to connect to an entire SAN.
I got the same board and I use this for 2 more drives: https://www.komplett.no/product/911689/datautstyr/pc-komponenter/kontrollere/harddisk/st-lab-pcie-sata-6g-2channel
Maybe this can work? https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
boom. had one of these for my old build. worked great
If you have an empty PCIe slot, you can use something like this:
I just grabbed a cheap one off Amazon, this one specifically.
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I was also thinking of something like this and you would just put it into the bottom most long slot.
The advantage would really just be more PCIe slots and more SATA ports. However if you need more SATA ports, you could always get something like this. I think the main worry is that you are already going to be filling up 3 out of the 4 SATA ports, but if you're not worried about that then I would get the micro one to save some money.
You could also always buy one of those graphics cards, install ubuntu, and then return it to Amazon. Or, you could try installing Ubuntu/Ubuntu server over the network, like shown here. I've never done that but I have installed raspbian over the network, and this could be an option to get around this problem.
And sure thing! I've asked tons of questions on this community and similar ones in the past, it's only fair for me to pay my dues and help out others as much as I can.
It's honestly way easier to get a cheap SATA PCIe controller, attach the BD drive to it and pass the controller through to the VM. You can get controllers for around 20 bucks (eg. this one from amazon.com). PCI passthrough on Proxmox is experimental, but the setup is well documented.
Hmm, that is problematic. Perhaps something like this PCIe to SATA add-on card would be a solution.
What make/model is the PC? While I agree with /u/LetsGetBlotto in general many of the less expensive PCs from the likes of Dell, HP, etc. use custom motherboards and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if, to save a few pennies per board, they cut out any extra ports.
If that's the case, do you have an open PCI-E slot? If so you can add an expansion adapter.
Taking a step back though, the main reason for adding an SSD is to speed up the PC, speeding up any reads and writes to disk. That means the best use is as the main C: drive where the OS is installed. You can replace the existing drive with an SSD instead of adding it in addition to the HDD. There's a process called cloning that copies everything from the HDD to the SSD. Although many will recommend a clean Windows install, cloning is simpler, no need to reinstall all your programs.
I use this one in an Unraid box.
I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell 9215 Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9ZTDCbDQ60DH5
I'm using an I/O Crest 4 port for $27 and it works just fine.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel - Core i3-6100 3.7 GHz Dual-Core Processor | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Motherboard | ASRock - B150M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $58.39 @ OutletPC |
| Memory | Patriot - Signature Line 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory | $51.99 @ Amazon |
| Storage | ADATA - Ultimate SU650 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $32.89 @ OutletPC |
| Storage | Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $58.50 @ Amazon |
| Case | Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case | $106.98 @ Newegg Business |
| Power Supply | EVGA - BT 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $29.99 @ Amazon |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $338.74 | |
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-16 16:34 EST-0500 |
The case has 8 internal 3,5 bays, the board has 6 (4 open, 2 will be used fot HDD and SSD) sata ports. You can extend the number of SATA headers later with pcie extension cards. After a certain point (psu has 4 sata power connectors) you'll need those as well.
For $26.99 add four more ports via PCI-E 1x expansion card.
https://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Controller-Non-Raid-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/
You're not likely going to find a new desktop motherboard that supports more than 6 SATA ports without getting a SATA controller. Also, as someone that used to have 12 HDDs, if you have a mix and match of different drives with no RAID then I would highly suggest purchasing one or two much larger drives and moving everything to those. HDDs have a finite lifespan and around the 5 year mark everything starts to break down and files become unreadable.
What I normally do when I'm shopping for an HDD is go to PC Part Picker, filter out ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte (I had too many bad experiences with cheap motherboards to go with ASRock again), filter out the specs I need (in your case 6 SATA Ports and Z370 or Z390 for the 8700K) then sort by price from lowest to highest. I did all of that here for you.
Just make sure they are not force you to use a raid setup. Unraid does that for you
i have 2 servers that had 4 4port sata cards in them with no issue https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Just upgraded to 2 of these in one server https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RL8I7M/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
these do require a firmware upgrade so the drives can be used as (BOD) bunch of disks mode and not raid
Thanks for the warning. If I buy this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU directly from Amazon, it should be fine, right?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have 2 of these connected fully to 8 drives, work great for the price
I added 2 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU
4 port card + 4 port card + 2 on motherboard = 10
This leaves me with one PCI slot free and the USB3 port that I can add hard drives to also.
Drivepool doesnt prevent data loss, the SnapRAID parity drive does. Check out their faq for how it all works, pretty cool stuff. But yeah your right, if your drive fails you have two options; fix it under warranty (deleting everything on it, or a new drive), or throwing it out. You buy a new drive to replace it and the parity rebuilds the drive with all the data that was on the failed.
Im powering 16 through a SAS backplane to a HBA card, 6 on the on board SATA, and 4 in a cheap pci sata expander (24 data and 2 ssd os).
I know for a fact that this one works:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and this one does not work
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018
Hope this helps
edit: Pretty sure the Marvell chipset makes the difference
Edit: Refer to velogeek's comment below, this motherboard has 14 SATA natively.
I don't have a motherboard recommendation, but it's pretty easy to add more.
Cheap and dirty way: 4 port SATA PCI-E card
IMO the better way: Supermicro SAS 1, 2 port card Flash to IT mode (very easy process with LSI MegaRaid software on windows) and use these or similar cables to breakout into 4 SATA per SAS port, in this case giving you 8 ports total.
The LSI card listed above is a SAS 1 card, while old will still give better performance than the SATA card. If you want even more performance (for SSD's and fast HDD's) check out SAS 2 cards. A little bit more money, but same concept. This guide should help you.
Awesome thanks, I ended up getting this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ELxVybXC4NWAR
I got these when they were $39 Then I got the top cages when those were on sale for like $50 back in the day. Go with the istarusa, sturdier to me. I had to send one of he Icecage (top ones) back because of a broken connection.
No HBA just a bunch of these IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 Not the best but it's all I knew at the time that would work. Next build I'll go a better route.
I got this, looks identical to the one already posted: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/
Also have one on the way that hooks up to the mini-PCI-E card slot on my mobo designed for wifi cards: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272329179239
Bear in mind PCI-E x1 doesn't have enough bandwidth to use all 4 drives at their peak (although copying from drive to drive attached to the same card might be another story).
I installed https://www.amazon.com/IOCrest-Port-SATA-Controller-Components/dp/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1469948764&sr=1-1&keywords=4+Port+SATA+III+PCIe today and it works great out of the box.
It's a Syba which has a Marvell chip.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syba-SATA-Controller-Profile-Brackets/dp/B00AZ9T3OU
2 second search on Amazon
I have two of the IO cards for sale. However I used them in a physical server and they worked well. No RAID but I am not sure how they would work in ESXi. Here are what I have.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005B0A6ZS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Maybe you can find some information on them and see how they work. Let me know if you're interested.
I ended up avoiding a RAID card and getting this card instead which works with FreeNAS 9.3 out of the box here.
As /u/just_insane has mentioned, plex is a good option for streaming. I'm an opponent of freenas, in favor of using something homebrew (zfsonlinux with debian or ubuntu, in my case, gentoo with zfs) to do what you need. I don't like how finicky freenas can be even with server-grade hardware. It's just not my thing.
That said, for someone who's new, it may be a good idea to try out freenas or nas4free. I just finished building a 16TB usable (20.5TB raw) system last week. I'll link my items below.
1xsupermicro mbd-x9scm-f-o - Great board. Loving it so far. dual onboard nic is nice.
2x850 Pro 256GB that I had laying around
1x 550W PSU laying around.
total ran me about $1300 and I'm able to max out a 2x1GB LACP setup writing and reading directly on rust.
EDIT: my recommendation, in most cases, is to at least do raidz1 (RAID5). RAID is no substitute for backups though, so invest in something offsite and make sure it's staying backed up. I use CrashPlan for offsite and local backups and it works like a charm.
this is one of them http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AZ9T3OU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Cant remember the other model. Pretty much the same thing though.
Depending on how many ports you need I just used these.
I went with the 2 port version since my mobo had enough built in ports. And I got them at the time for like 8 bucks.
Popular alternatives to I/O Crest 4 Port SATA III P...
I/O CREST 2 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Asmedia ASM1061 Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SY-PEX40039
