Multi-SSD PCIe Carrier Cards For Non-Bifurcation Normies?!

Hello everyone - I was recently helping pull data off a friend’s mSATA SSD when it occurred to me; mSata has a small footprint. I bet you could fit 6+ mSata connectors on a single PCIe x16 carrier card, and since it’s SATA theoretically Bifurcation might not be required? I know mSATA is one of those transient technologies, but as I recall they did make mSATA SSDs in capacities up to 2TB.

Just trying to think about Wendell theme of ‘coloring outside the lines’, and being creative in useful ways.

I’m aware of two devices that are loosely related to this concept:

  • 5 x 2280 M.2 B-Key PCIe 3.0 x16 Card: Amazon.com

This one is interesting, but seems to carry mixed reviews online. With unusual M.2 products, I’m weary of the uninformed not understanding M.2 keys and leaving poor reviews when things work out badly for them. It lists a bandwidth limitation of PCIe 3.0 x2, so you’re capping out at 2 GB/s max. But for a budget way of cramming five more SSDs into a consumer platform, that could still have merit.

  • 1 x 2280 M.2 B-Key, 1 x 2280 M.2 M-Key, 1 x mSATA PCIe 3.0 x16 Card: Amazon.com

This one is a nice option if you need less disk density, but you’ve got multiple interface SSDs kicking around. You have a place to park your old PCIe 3.0 NVMe without wasting your nicer 4.0/5.0 ports on the mobo. It looks as if the card only powers the SATA interfaces as there’s SATA data connectors to plug into your controller like you usually would a 2.5"/3.5" device.

Does anyone have experience with such creatures? Or does anyone know of a PCIe x16 carrier card that just has all the mSATA connectors?! Appreciate it, as I also enjoy edge/fringe uses of tech to help creativity when planning/updating builds for friends/family.

The first listing does not work with msata but the second one does and this may help you find compatibility

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mSATA and M.2 SSDs: What’s the difference?

With the increase in motherboards and systems beyond portable devices supporting mini-SATA (mSATA) and M.2 standards for SSDs, we have seen ongoing confusion between these two standards.

In short, mSATA and M.2 SSDs are both high-performance storage devices, however, the most obvious difference between them is their compatibility.

In this article, we’ll give you an overview of both SSD types, their benefits and drawbacks, and how to decide which one is best for your upgrade.

What is an mSATA SSD?

An mSATA SSD is a solid state drive (SSD) that conforms to the mSATA interface specification developed by the Serial ATA (SATA) International Organization.

mSATA SSDs are small factor SSDs. In fact, Crucial’s mSATA SSDs are one-eighth the size of our standard 2.5-inch drives, and are designed to plug into an mSATA socket on a system’s motherboard. mSATA SSDs are generally designed for use with portable devices such as laptops, tablets and notebooks.

What is an M.2 SSD?

M.2 SSDs are the other type of small form factor SSDs and are around the size of a stick of gum. The M.2 form factor is designed to maximize your PC or laptop’s printed circuit board (PCB) while minimizing the amount of space it takes up. To connect an M.2 SSD, your motherboard will need to have an M.2 slot. Crucial M.2 SSDs are designed for space-constrained devices like tablets and ultrabooks.

For more information on different form factors, read our article on understanding M.2, SATA, PCIe and NVMe SSDs.

mSATA vs M.2

Both mSATA and M.2 SSDs are designed for small devices such as laptops, tablets and notebooks, but their main difference is compatibility.

SATA and PCIe interfaces are the types of physical connections that transmit data to and from the storage device and the rest of the computer. An M.2 SSD can support SATA or PCle interfaces, while an mSATA SSD can only support a SATA interface.

The mSATA form factor is relatively straightforward in terms of compatibility. The only issue we’ve seen has been when users try to put them in a mini PCIe slot that’s not capable of supporting mSATA. While the slots looks identical, (and some motherboards support both), a PCIe-only slot/motherboard will not run any mSATA drives.

The most important thing to remember when dealing with these standards is that it’s best to refer to your system documentation, or to use a resource like the Crucial® System Scanner, to check the SSD compatibility with your system. Some systems require PCIe-based devices, while others require SATA-based devices. Some can use both, but might need to be configured to one mode or another in your system’s UEFI or BIOS. The standards are not interoperable, even though the pinouts and slots may be similar or identical. This is the most frequent issue we see regarding problems with installation of these drives, and it might require exchanging the drive for one with the correct compatibility.

Thanks for posting! Yes I’m aware of the difference between between mSATA and M.2 B-Key SSDs - I also tried to clearly reference each to avoid any confusion. That is a good reference for those who may not understand yet, though.

However my questions were:

1] Does anyone have experience with either linked cards?

2] Or does anyone know of a PCIe x16 carrier card that has many mSATA connectors?

Thank you for your time.

Experience with the cards yes, first will not work out of the box the second will. Most all cards like this no matter the slot amout will only be for new gen m.2 because most mSATAs are for laptops. With that said you can get something like this

mSATA to SATA adapter and fill any card like these but you may need todo extra steps to get it running like the end of the article I posted shows in the part about system scanning and configuration of the bios.

Depending on what your overall goal is you may want to use that nic spot for something like this

Sas nic that can move 12gbs instead of 6gbs. Just a thought.

I would seriously advise against trusting a sata controller with any data. I have heard of many bad things caused by these things, enough for none of these to be very trustworthy. If you want to attach non-pcie drives, either sas or sata, the most proven and trustworthy way to go is an HBA, not a sata controller card. Flavors of an IT mode flashed LSI 92xx or 93xx variant card will do you just fine. Grab some cables and some msata to sata adapters and a cable and it will be a solid solution. I have seen frequent issues with sata controller cards such as those causing huge hard to track down issues with zfs and just with data corruption in general. Here is a link to a random one with cables for 30 bucks. There are also variants that do 16 and 24 drives. Let me know if you need something like that or some advice and we can help you pick out a card. You can find msata adapters for less than 10 dollars each. It will be more expensive and bulkier than the straight pcie card one, however if you would like something you can trust with your data this is the way to go. The one that was recommended by @SlayMoreGames has the potential to be slightly faster for drives that support it, which msata doesn’t to my knowledge. Not the best choice for this scenario, but it is still a good and trustworthy option. There are variants of these that have ports in different locations or directions and support more or less drives. Make sure you get an IT mode controller (not a raid one) unless you need hardware raid.

All of this is experimental curiosity. I wouldn’t deploy a solution like this to my own server. If you’re curious about that I have it all posted over here: FrenziedManbeast's HomeLab

I manage machines for lots of friends/family so I like kicking around ideas of adding lots of disks in small spaces. An HBA with all the cables and adapters is an ungodly mess compared to a simple carrier board.

Thanks for your input and thoughts!

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oh good good okay. Had to give the warning in case you didnt know about the issues with sata controllers lol. Cant ever trust those things.

You might wanna take a look at these dinguses. 4x nvme m.2 in a single u.2 slot. Pcie only, not for sata sorry. :wink: I bought 4 of em for 35 each. I havent had the time to use em but they seem to be one of if not the cheapest (non jank asf) way to get 64 lanes out of an x16 slot. You can shove 16 m.2s into a single slot, granted you have the power and cooling for it lol.

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Oh my that is deliciously jank. Now all we need are M.2 prices to cut in half and densities to double! I already have long-term expansion plans to utilize 6 x Oculink for NVMe, so this is definitely interesting, thanks!

Hey, it aint half bad lol. Theres no storage controller, its just a pcie switch. Its surprisingly non-jank. The quad u.2 card may be going a bit far though haha.

You, me, and everyone else here wants it bad ;-;
As soon as 25$/tb can happen, as I had expected a while back from the rate prices were dropping (lol), I would love to swap basically all my storage to ssds. As of now, though, prices are kinda sad. I was lucky to be able to get 5x7.68tb sas ssds. Not very fast, but compared to hard drives they’re lightning. I wonder if prices for 4 and 8tb ssds are still gonna be insane when 245tb ssds drop… Probably. Rip

I called it ‘deliciously jank’ because that’s generally my take on cramming consumer drives into enterprise kit. In my case these may be an outstanding idea to add even more expansion in future.

I really need capacity more than total throughput as my network tops out at 10G anyway. Not much I do is write intensive.

I bought most of my SATA flash last summer for ~20-25/TB. Buying expansion drives and one replacement this year made me cry big boy tears.

Mixing and matching consumer and enterprise is just so fun. I had an x670 and a 7600x crammed into a supermicro cse 846. No drives in the front, its just being used as a box. The box of my dreams, but whatever. Plugged into that mobo was a quad m.2 bifurcation card with 4x 110mm 2tb seagate nytro enterprise ssds in a raid 10 lmao. I used that piece of absolute garbage for minecraft. I ended up using the internals for that for my normal pc, but plan on replacing it with something as good or better. Looking for more am5 deals around haha. Ive done other mix n match stuff, like the 1000 dollar nvme pcie switch backplane with a crappy pos board, but the mc one I actually used the hell out of.

No kiddin. I only have 1gb network here, but I still crave that ssd response time. Hard drives just don’t cut it for me anymore, even though they actually do and I just want an excuse to replace the spinners with ssds haha.

Yeahhhhhh things aint lookin too good for now lol. I had 2 of my 1tb sata boot drives die in the last 5 months, replaced them with some 3.2tb u.2 drives I had lying around. Got em for something cheap, cant remember. Pretty darn nice drives. The replacements for them are unfathomably expensive lmao. Reallllly hope they dont die. Unlikely, but if one does die, I am not looking forward to that ebay reality check again. If one of the 7.68tb drives die… Welp.

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