Adding an SSD boot drive - no more sata sockets

[scott55]

FreeNAS 11.3-Release
Supermicro X10 SLM-F-O with Intel Pentium 3220, 2*8GB Crucial ECC 1.5V DDR3 1600MHz (CT4485065)
6*WD20EFRX WD Red 2TB and 60GB Corsair boot drive
Seasonic SSR360GP, APC Back-UPS ES 550VA, CoolerMaster N600

This board has only 6 sata sockets and they are all populated with storage drives. I have installed FreeNAS successfully to a USB thumb drive plugged directly into the board but I want to reinstall to a 60GB SSD.

What are my options? Can I adapt the SSD to the USB socket? Is there a way to adapt to one of the PCIe slots? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dan Tudora]

hello
USB to SATA adapter is the answer
success

 

[Alecmascot]

I have these in three of my servers.

PCI-E Expansion Card Converter Adapter Board for mSATA SSD & SATA 3 III HDD | eBay

Extend SATA + mSATA data interfaces, and support more storage devices. Ports : SATA3.0 + mSATA. Support for Win7,Win8,win 10 Win XP, Vista. Support IDC/AHCI Model. Speed for SATA2.0--300MB/S. Speed for SATA1.0--150MB/S.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[scott55]

I have these in three of my servers.

PCI-E Expansion Card Converter Adapter Board for mSATA SSD & SATA 3 III HDD | eBay

Extend SATA + mSATA data interfaces, and support more storage devices. Ports : SATA3.0 + mSATA. Support for Win7,Win8,win 10 Win XP, Vista. Support IDC/AHCI Model. Speed for SATA2.0--300MB/S. Speed for SATA1.0--150MB/S.

www.ebay.co.uk

Looks good, but I have a 60GB 2.5" SSD that I would like to use.

 

[scott55]

hello
USB to SATA adapter is the answer
success

I will try this first.

 

[Alecmascot]

Looks good, but I have a 60GB 2.5" SSD that I would like to use.

There is a sata port on the card as well....
Stay away from USB.

 

[scott55]

There is a sata port on the card as well....
Stay away from USB.

If I install via a USB adapter, could I just plug it into the sata port on the card when it comes, or would I have to reinstall? I want to get running soon.

 

[HoneyBadger]

If I install via a USB adapter, could I just plug it into the sata port on the card when it comes, or would I have to reinstall? I want to get running soon.

The SATA port on the card linked above is a "SATA output" - connecting a drive to it will do nothing as it's expecting a motherboard port (which you don't have available) on the other end.

Go with your original plan of a SATA-to-USB converter and your 60GB SSD - I would suggest trying to find a USB 2.0 converter or use a USB 2.0 internal port though.

 

[ThreeDee]

I used a SATA to USB adapter for my 120GB SSD boot drive for quite awhile without issue .. almost a year I think because I was out of SATA ports as well .. USB port is enough to power the drive.. I upgraded my hardware and got a cheap HBA card so I have SATA ports to spare now and simply plugged in my SSD to an open SATA port and set it as my boot drive in the BIOS and still going strong.

alternatively .. you can pic up an IBM M1015 and cross flash it to an LSI9211-8i IT mode to give you up to 8 more SATA/SAS connections... or something similar