Looking to upgrade this mobo due to the lack of sata ports (only has 4). Can someone recommend a new mobo that has more sata ports for HDDs? Hopefully can be the same size (i believe is mATX) and use the same CPU (12500)
Thanks!
Maybe just add LSI HBA? No need to swap the whole board just for some SATA ports.
if you are in the US this may work perfectly for you… If not Ebay is your friend. You’ll want it with IT firmware.
thank you for your response! Sorry, what is an LSI HBA? Is that an add-on card that just has sata ports? Can you give any recommendations?
It’s basically a PCI-E expansion card that connects SAS or SATA hard disks to your computer, depending on what cables you use.
It can work in RAID mode (IR firmware) or Initialization Target mode (IT firmware).
In RAID mode it uses onboard controller to mange the disks directly, and it presents a “virtual” disk to the operating system that may be built from multiple physical disks. See RAID for more details.
In Initialization Target mode it will just be a dumb interface to connect each physical disk directly to the operating system. In the home lab scene we like this because more advanced filesystems such as ZFS, REFS, BTRFS really don’t like abstraction that RAID mode provides. In IT mode it is basically just an additional SATA controller for your PC and you would manage the disks just like if they were directly connected to your motherboard SATA port.
You will need SFF-8087 SATA Cable to connect SATA disks.
These LSI cards are typically used in enterprise space, but ones based on LSI 9211-8i are not useful any more, modern enterprise gear mostly needs higher bandwidth.
There are consumer grade SATA PCIE expansion cards too, but I’d stick with surplus enterprise gear.
Oh, and LSI 9211-8i based cards will provide you with 8 SATA interfaces, but if you need more you can always stick another one if you have PCIE slot available.
Del PERC H310 is one of the more popular versions, you can just search Ebay or AliExpress for “9211-8i P20 IT mode”, and just make sure to pick one with SATA cables.
The LSI 9211 is over 10y old by now and has known compatibility issues with newer hardware (some can be worked around). If you’re going for a HBA at least get something that isn’t a decade old (reliability, support) and since long end of life. There are also a bunch of fake LSI 9211-8i cards around which usually work but apparently die pretty quickly.
ASM1166 or JMB585 controllers might also be alternatives you want to look into.
Please substantiate your claims on compatibility issues for clarification.
LSI cards have been a staple in the enterprise and for years in home labs for their reliability. That certainly still is the case in 2023 on Linux based platforms.
These cards have been produced in oodles of versions and this page contains a good guide through those.
Getting a 10 year old used card for ~$20 is not much of a risk but can offer significant rewards.
Except for reliability, hardware doesn’t last forever and you can’t reuse cables on newer HBAs as far as I can tell and the ones you find on aliexpress have a high probability to be fakes.
Compatibility issues
Thanks. Your link refers to " LSI 1078" based controllers of SAS1 generation, that are indeed not recommended anymore.
The above recommended LSI 9211-8i is a SAS2 based card which is still listed as recommended SAS/SATA card for TrueNAS/FreeNAS systems
I agree to using caution with older tech, but this one in particular is very well understood and documented on this and other forums.
Read the complete title and just to clarify, LSI 9211-8i causes RAM slot one to be disabled | TrueNAS Community
Not gonna lie, these cards seem like a hassle to deal with 
Another option is to simply retire a couple of those SATA disks. I know nothing of your setup but you have one of two issues here:
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You are running a bunch of 1TB and 2TB HDDs on SATA, at which point just buy either a 4TB SSD or 12TB HDD and consolidate to the single drive.
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Or you have a bunch of large capacity drives in there, at which point you might want to consider going full NAS.
Easiest fix, like most have said, is to add more sata ports via extension. Use something like this.
My situation is #2…I have another thread on the forums about building a rackmount setup, but not sure what i want to do yet.
That extension adapter card im not sure will work, I unfortunately only have 1 m.2 (i actually have a second one but there are no posts to screw it in. So fucking weird)
You should have a second screw available from your motherboard spare parts, otherwise those screws are very much standard and should be possible to pick up in any computer store. Costs less than $10.
Anyway, my advice for you is to start investing in NAS hardware or better backup solutions. HDDs on workstations / desktops are just too slow nowadays, and SATA SSDs are not as useful as they used to be (but still useful if you mostly deal with smaller files, like those below 50-100 MB in size).
When going for a NAS I tend to prioritize three things:
- Capacity. How large does my case need to be? How much storage do I realistically need, now and in five years?
- Power. Every W this thing draws will cost 0.72 kWh per month, so the less power this draws, the better.
- Performance. Everyone want a super server that can crack a bazillion passwords in three nanoseconds, but that will cost a lot of unnecessary money and energy.
One of the best available NAS boxes for consumers is the Node 804 in my opinion. Couple that with a proper server board like the Asrock B650D4U, or if you want to keep it on LGA1700, the Asus Pro WS W680M-ACE is also a solid pick. Both are ~$300 and both support up to 8 SATA ports via SAS.
Rest is up to you what is worth it, but we’re talking a breakdown of roughly $900 for a decent DIY NAS. You can go down to $400-$600 if you buy the trashiest mctrashy components, and it is possible to scavenge parts from older builds, like a PSU for instance.
I actually have the Node 804 currently, great little case but not enough HDD space.
I went and bought a 25u server rack and going big boy rackmount 
So now I need to figure out how to and with what to build an actual server with many many drives
Well, disk shelves and a 2U 12 drive unit might be a good start then. You do need to move to SAS once you move past 8 SATA drives, other than that, knock yourself out!
see this is the kind of stuff I just have no clue on…what is SAS?
In SOHO computing, SAS is basically parallell SATA. Of course, if you are talking Enterprise, it is something else entirely, but in SOHO, we use it to connect SATA drives.
Perhaps something like this explains it better:
While SATA is a storage protocol for consumer-grade storage devices (HDD, SSD, CD/DVD), SAS is the enterprise equivalent. Start with the above wikipedia article to get familiar.
SATA and SAS have a lot in common. SATA devices work with SAS controllers but not the other way round.
Overdramatically said, SAS stores the internet and has been since its inception in 2004.
There are multiple generations of SAS (SAS-1 to SAS-5) with an increasing set of features and dramatically improved performance. By now, cloud vendors have moved on to the latest versions of SAS storage and devices (SAS-4, SAS-5), which means that older gen hw is available used for dirt cheap.
As discussed earlier in this thread, SAS-1 really doesn’t work well with today’s devices and is best left in peace, but SAS-2/SAS-3 is great for running a bunch of HDD based home storage.
As with any technology that is up to 15 years old there are some minor caveats. Pros are reliability, scalability, performance. Cons are need for PCIe cards (HBA) and their size, their power consumption (6-17W depending on card and SAS gen), lack of vendor support for old tech (documentation, drivers, firmware are readily available though).
Thank you kindly for your post! I have a lot to read up on!