Dummy PCIe 7-port motherboard

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I have 4 SAS Extender cards and am currently rolling a home-grown system on an ESP-8266 to create a JBOD using those SAS Expanders.

What I want is a dummy motherboard with 4+ powered PCIe ports that I can plug my SAS Expander cards into.

These are the cards: Adaptec - Adaptec SAS Expander 82885T. They use an x4 slot.

Right now I’m using those mining PCIe x16 over USB adapters because they take 6-pin power. But they don’t sit nicely in my case, and the boards are too large to have more than 3 cards.

Is there anyone making powered PCIe ports? With the same spacing as a motherboard?

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I think you can also power these SAS Expanders via 4-Pin molex connector instead of via the PCI slot

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This is correct

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I can, but the SAS cables are tugging the cards in this Storinator, and they will touch.

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I came up with another idea. I can put a server in there and plug them into that board.

Bad part is they’ll be powered by that board though. If it goes offline, so do the drives. And unexpectedly as well.

More info here:

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