JBOD Help

[DocPMD]

Given that the CPU has 24 lanes total. 4 to the chipset, 4 to the PCIe Storage and 16 to the motherboard PCIe Slots
1 slot will be 16, its highly unlikley that the second 16 slot is electrically 16. Or maybe it is 16 - but shares lanes with Slot 1. In which case the GPU will get 8 and the second slot will get 8 (if something is inserted, otherwise the GPU will get 16)
It might be supplied by the chipset, but my experience of those is that tend to be of a lesser standard. The two PCIe x1 are probably chipset

However I don't actually know as you didn't post what motherboard you had - which leaves me / us guessing.

But you should be OK with a X8 HBA with the GPU running in X8 as well.

Sorry for the incomplete information.

It's a Dell Inspiron 5676. Doesn't list the motherboard in the specs. The chipset is AMD promontory X370.

As far as the PCIe slots go, your logic makes sense, all I can report is what I see and what is reported in the specs. I've attached the manual.

 

[NugentS]

Wow - that is a really crappy manual
Of course it being a dell means its probably proprietary in some manner which may make moving it to a new case difficult. I don't know that - but suspect its likley - and the manual doesn't help.

I would be looking at a JBOD disk array and an external SAS card

Something like: https://www.ebay.com/itm/163197898846?hash=item25ff5a505e:g:llcAAOSwMYtcQEG0 for the SAS card
And a SAS JBOD enclosure. With the right one you can fit loads of drives on that single SAS card (and an expander - which is cheap)

 

[DocPMD]

Wow - that is a really crappy manual
Of course it being a dell means its probably proprietary in some manner which may make moving it to a new case difficult. I don't know that - but suspect its likley - and the manual doesn't help.

I would be looking at a JBOD disk array and an external SAS card

Something like: https://www.ebay.com/itm/163197898846?hash=item25ff5a505e:g:llcAAOSwMYtcQEG0 for the SAS card
And a SAS JBOD enclosure. With the right one you can fit loads of drives on that single SAS card (and an expander - which is cheap)

Thank you so much. Appreciate you taking the time to help me.

I think I will start the build in a bout two weeks. I'll report back on progress.