Can I use any PCIe SATA expansion card to add more storage ports in FreeNAS

[etegration]

i think the other concern will also be recovery when you need to. Do you just pop the expansion card and hdd into another mobo, reinstall freenas and re-import all config and it will work?

 

[sretalla]

Do you just pop the expansion card and hdd into another mobo, reinstall freenas and re-import all config and it will work?

Depending on what you're recovering from, you may just be able to transfer all disks (including the boot drive) to another system, regardless of which SATA controller.

FreeNAS doesn't care which way you give it access to the disks, it can be any controller that allows the OS direct access and any disk can connect via any controller/port at any point in its life and can change at any time without issue.

This forum has noted many issues with Marvell SATA controllers and recommends LSI HBA cards as the best kind of SATA connectivity.