How to add SATA ports

[gusto]

Odroid H2 has only 2 SATA ports. I have already used both ports (ZFS mirror). I want to add two new SSDs. I've seen these tutorials on expanding SATA ports.
10 SATA Drives
Building 6 Bay NAS with Software RAID
Which option would be better for me?
I want to add 2x WD Blue SSD 1TB.
Or are there some cheaper sata expanders?

[odroid]

I think the second option (M.2 PCIe to SATA bridge) seems to be a better option since it will not affect your current ZFS performance.
Or, Dual Bay 2.5 Inch External SSD Enclosure might be a solution for you if you don't mind using a USB interface.

[gusto]

I use the USB solution now and it is a very bad solution for ZFS.
That's why I want to expand SATA ports.

[brad]

I used an IBM ServeRAID H1110 pcie card with M.2 adapter. I chose it for a number of reasons

- with some hacks it can be flashed with bypass / unraid firmware to allow native sata ports (rather than just hardware raid)
- it has a PCIEx4 connector that supports pcie v2 speeds (one pcie 2.0 lane per sata port)
- found cheaply online 2nd hand
- Relatively large heat-sink to dissipate any heat.

I found some potential issues with other solutions (depending on what your use case it may not be an issue)

- Very few new sata cards use 4x pcie lanes, instead they use 1 or 2 only but they are faster pcie v3.0 speeds that the H2 does not support.
- Potential for M.2 sata cards to overheat with load as not easy for them to dissipate head on the small M.2 card.

Some photo's and a bit of a thread on my initial testing is here viewtopic.php?p=323863#p323863 (you can also see some photo's from defcon showing an M.2 sata card with heatsink)

This is what is looked like a little more complete - viewtopic.php?p=327311#p327311

I put 6xssd's in it and did some testing with TrueNAS scale, it's a NAS solution running linux with ZFS and performance was quiet good and was also very reliable (stripping, mirroring, raid5). I have dismantled for the moment and going to rebuild with 2xHDD mirrored and 2x ssd's mirrored, I might use a 3rd ssd as cache for the HDD's.

Took me some time to work out and implement but if your ready for a challenge

[gusto]

Very nice, but I'm looking for something small, e.g. IOCREST M.2 Ngff to Sata 3 Adapter .
I just want to know if it will work with Odroid H2 (debian 11).

[odroid]

I can't guarantee.
But, it might work if you use a M.2 A key to M key or E key to M key adapter since H2 M.2 slot is a M key.

[gusto]

Will this be better? IOCREST 2 Port SATA III Full Height Mini PCIE 3.0 Gen3 or this ? SATA 3.0 Dual Ports to Mini PCI-E PCI Express Adapter Converter.
I don't want to buy a device that won't work. Therefore, I want to consult with experienced users of the Odrid H2 motherboard.
thx

[odroid]

I have no experience of using a two SATA port adapter.
I hope other users will help you.

[brad]

Will this be better? IOCREST 2 Port SATA III Full Height Mini PCIE 3.0 Gen3 or this ? SATA 3.0 Dual Ports to Mini PCI-E PCI Express Adapter Converter.
I don't want to buy a device that won't work. Therefore, I want to consult with experienced users of the Odrid H2 motherboard.
thx

Those 2 adapters are not going to work as they are mini pcie not M.2.

For a card to have a chance to work it must be

- M.2 card
- M Key type

M.2 M key slot looks like this (I suspect this card would work with odroid H2) https://ko.aliexpress.com/item/1005003782618416.html (notice the cutout position and 5 pins next to it)

This card is also a M.2 but is has incorrect key type (A + E) for Odroid H2 so it will not work - https://ko.aliexpress.com/item/4000385259838.html

This is a strange card, they say it is B key but in fact has cutouts for B or M Key so it may or may not work- https://ko.aliexpress.com/item/1005003324500446.html

[gusto]

Thank you, I'll order this one

[tmihai20]

I am a bit late to the party, but I need the M.2 slot for the OS. I went for a SATA multiplier, it is working well enough. I have 2 multipliers for each port: 2 drives on one port and one drive on the other port.

[gusto]

Thank you, I'll order this one

I bought cables yesterday and today I plugged it into an odroid H2 board. Let me just remind you that I use proxmox 7. Two system disks remained connected in the sata ports on the mainboard. I connected two new data disks to a new SATA converter.
One LED on the converter flashes continuously and the other is lit.
https://youtu.be/v7wvQM3dVuw
The Proxmox (Debian 11) disks connected via sata converter do not see.

/dev/sda and /dev/sdb are system disks

fdisk-l.png (156.77 KiB) Viewed 204 times

Do I need to install anything else?

Edit:
By https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-h2/appli ... setup_bios I set up PCI Express Clock Gating to Disabled. The LEDs on both discs are now flashing.

Debian recognizes disks:

Code: Select all

root@local-proxmox:~# dmesg | grep scsi
[    2.103841] scsi host0: ahci
[    2.104309] scsi host1: ahci
[    2.105638] scsi host2: ahci
[    2.105867] scsi host3: ahci
[    2.106088] scsi host4: ahci
[    2.108469] scsi host5: ahci
[    2.112124] scsi host6: ahci
[    2.592558] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      Samsung SSD 870  1B6Q PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    2.592912] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[    2.593320] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      Samsung SSD 870  1B6Q PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    2.593629] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[    3.389371] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC  WDS100T2B0A 00WD PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    3.389773] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[    9.513230] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      WDC  WDS100T2B0A 20WD PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[    9.513619] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[   66.842502] iscsi: registered transport (tcp)
[   66.899528] iscsi: registered transport (iser)

However, fdisk still does not see the disks.
I'm worried about why the LEDs on the sata ports are flashing so hard.

[brad]

However, fdisk still does not see the disks.
I'm worried about why the LEDs on the sata ports are flashing so hard.

I wonder which drivers are being used or are missing, does "lspci -k" show which sata controller is being used on your adapter?

[gusto]

I think the flashing LED indicates some disk activity. I'm afraid they won't hurt.

lspci -k

Code: Select all

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Gemini Lake Host Bridge (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Gemini Lake Host Bridge
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 600] (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Video
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 605
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915
00:0e.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Sound
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor High Definition Audio
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_skl, snd_sof_pci_intel_apl
00:0f.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor Trusted Execution Engine Interface (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor Trusted Execution Engine Interface
        Kernel driver in use: mei_me
        Kernel modules: mei_me
00:12.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor SATA Controller (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - SATA
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: ahci
        Kernel modules: ahci
00:13.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Gemini Lake PCI Express Root Port (rev f3)
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:14.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Gemini Lake PCI Express Root Port (rev f3)
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:14.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Gemini Lake PCI Express Root Port (rev f3)
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:15.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
        Kernel modules: xhci_pci
00:17.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 31b4 (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
        Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:17.1 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 31b6 (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
        Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:17.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 31b8 (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
        Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:17.3 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 31ba (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
        Kernel driver in use: intel-lpss
        Kernel modules: intel_lpss_pci
00:1c.0 SD Host controller: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
        Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
        Kernel modules: sdhci_pci
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor LPC Controller (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 7270
00:1f.1 SMBus: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor Gaussian Mixture Model (rev 03)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Other
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Celeron/Pentium Silver Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
        Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus
        Kernel modules: i2c_i801
01:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB58x AHCI SATA controller (rev ff)
        Kernel driver in use: ahci
        Kernel modules: ahci
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
        Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
        Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169

thx

[gusto]

I resigned the sata controller.

I tried other sata cables.
Sometimes the LEDs on the controller flash, other times one LED flashes and the other is lit, other times no LED is lit.
Sometimes in terminal dmesg grep scsi I see disks, other times I don't see.
Everything is just shitty.
I removed the SATA controller from Odroid H2.
To fuck on ZFS Mirror, I will only use a sata usb3 converter and one disk.

I'm disappointed