Gigabyte Aorus z690 Master - SATA Expansion Card problems

I updated my NAS to this motherboard recently and had some issues logging into TrueNAS - while I am not 100% sure - checking the bios shows 3 drives are missing, and skipping into trueNas console shows 3 drives missing.

I am using a PCIe x1 SATA hub, this one in fact:

SupaHub SATA Card 8 Port, Non Raid SATA Expansion Card for SATA III 6G Hard Drives

You can’t buy it at the moment, but it is listed still here if seeing the specs helps. It worked fine on my older MB (I mean really old motherboard).

The bios sees that there is a PCie 2.0 x1 device plugged in - but nothing is seeing the drives attached. The expansion card itself, lights up - with 3 tiny blue LEDs to indicate that IT has seen that 3 drives are properly powered and properly plugged in so I don’t think the card itself is broken or the drive cables are not correctly put in or the power isn’t going to the drives.

I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this - is a PCie 2.0 x1 card just too damn old for a z690 board - if so, can you recommend a replacement?

Is there some bios setting I need to tweak to get this to be recognised - and thus allow TrueNas to power up - as I think Truenas is trying to load up 9 drives and missing 3 is too much for it to complete and it just goes into a boot cycle.

Any thoughts at all that might help me get the NAS up?

I put this here, as I feel this is a hardware problem at the moment.

Just for confirmation, TrueNAS itself is installed on the data array drives?

I don’t suppose you could plug the OS containing drives into the motherboard, and just the data drives into the expansion card?

What about running a USB stick with TrueNAS on it, maybe like the installer USB, and see if it will boot into the installer, then see if the installer detects any of the card-attached-drives, or has drivers for the card?

Maybe the board just doesn’t want to boot from card attached drives?

Just an idea.
If trying the USB stick, you could instead try a copy of Ubuntu or other Linux, in case they have drivers for the card?

Not suggesting reformatting or breaking the existing array, so not saying to actually go ahead and install.

Truenas is installed on an SSD separate from the HDD drives, that boots fine. I get into TrueNAS boot screen - but as TrueNAS is attempting to load up the pools - it fails, because 3 drives are missing and I think that is too many drives missing for it to boot.

I am not sure attempting to run it from a USB will result in any difference?

This is my fault my post wasn’t clear when I look at devices in the Bios three drives are missing, when I look at devices in TrueNAS console - 3 drives are missing.

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Moving back to my old motherboard, it has booted up just fine - seen all drives.

So that is a huge worry off my mind - that I had somehow corrupted it and lost terabytes of data.

Seems there is an issue simply moving to a new motherboard that doesn’t support 8 drives (not that my old one did anyway) but at least one that doesn’t have a PCie x1 slot on it - only the larger PCIe slots and doesn’t seem to want to see the expansion card I am running.

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