How to get more SATA ports?

[Chunkete]

Hi all,

I am a newbuy on this world of freenas. I am building a new system for home porpouses as a christmas gift.

I've been reeding a lot and finally, I decide to buy the following:

- Case: Fractal Node 804
- MOBO: Asus Z97M Plus - I now that it does not support ECC - but as this is just for fun it has no sense for me that extra investment in MOBO and memory
- 16 GB of Kingston memory
- INTEL G3220 processor

The MOBO has 6 SATA intel ports, but I want to extend this to at least 10.I know that the recommended sata controller is the M1015, but it is impossible to find a cheap one in spain, and if I order it to americas it goes for 200$. Is there any other that should work well with freenas or should I use a SATA port multiplier?

Thank you very much for your help

 

[Mr_N]

Can you find a M1115 any cheaper? the M1015 is getting a bit old these days.

There's plenty of cheap PCI cards which will add SATA ports around but they probably all come with relatively cheap functionality :)

 

[Chunkete]

Thanks Mr_N for your reply.

I think I can find a M1115 for 150€. what seems expensive also .

About those chips PCI cards, the only thing is need is to add 4 ports, no more functionality, do you know of one that works good?

Thanks again

 

[Ericloewe]

Can you find a M1115 any cheaper? the M1015 is getting a bit old these days.

There's plenty of cheap PCI cards which will add SATA ports around but they probably all come with relatively cheap functionality :)

The M1015 and M1115 are exactly the same thing, as far as FreeNAS usage is concerned. Both are LSI SAS 2008-based SAS controllers.

 

[joeschmuck]

Since you are building a non-standard FreeNAS machine then I assume you are not looking for premium parts either. 10 drives, that is quite a system to not run ECC RAM but you are aware of the risks it sounds like.

Just go find a 4 port SATA card that is compatible with your MB, in this case PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 (depends on where you plug it in). A lot of these are in the $50 US range here in the USA but I have no idea if any of them are not supported. If you find a model, do a Google search for if it works on a FreeBSD system. If you find one that works, please post it's information so the rest of us could benefit from it.