M.2 to SATA card, it will work?

[Deadpool]

Hello everyone,

 

I have to add 4 extra drives and I only have available one PCIe 3.0 1x and one M.2 slot on my motherboard.

 

I read a lot about cards, chips, lanes and so on but I didn't fully understand.

 

I saw this M.2 to Sata adapter with chip JMB585:

https://www.amazon.es/dp/B09PBL2QXK/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_CQ90W4E70PX1YQV0AC4K?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

PCIe cards that I saw have 4 Sata ports and works with the ASM1064 chip.

 

What do you think about the M2 adapter? Will be enough to handle the 4 drives with a decent performance/speed?

 

Any comments about ASM1064? Anyone have it or tested it?

 

Thank you so much in advance

[flyride]

M.2 is a type of port which is an interface into a SATA controller, or a miniaturized PCIe slot, or both (configurable to one or the other).

If it is NVMe compatible or M-key, it's a PCIe slot.  It should be PCIe 1x, 2x or 4x, depending upon the motherboard implementation.

 

The card itself can be PCIe 1x, 2x or 4x as well.  The actual lanes in use is defined by the slot or card with the least lanes.

 

Maximum bandwidth of a SATA-3 port is 600 MBps.  Maximum bandwidth of a 5-port card would be 3 GBps.  This requires SSD's as real-world performance of spinning disks max out around 200MBps per channel.

 

PCIe 3.0 performance per lane is roughly 1 GBps.

Thus, a 1x connection will definitely be maxed out by 5 channels of SSD

2x connection would potentially be maxed out with SSD (but probably ok with spinning disk)

4x will always have headroom regardless of the SATA device types

[IG-88]

On 3/17/2022 at 12:34 AM, Deadpool said:

In relation to the second issue, I supposed that using the chip JMB585 there wouldn't be any major problem, just maybe update the extra.lzma

i had tested a jmb585 m.2 card nearly 2 years ago and it newer was running stable and there are mechanical issues too as the m.2 boards are very thin, forget unplug or plug cables, you might beak or stretch the boars beyond limits (at least its needed to put something below the board to limit the way it can be bend downward), i tried to have all 5 sata cable connected and even that put a lot of stain to the board and i hat to hold the sata cable in place with zip ties on the cpu cooler

i ended with a M.2 flex cable to pcie slot solution and using a normal (reliable, cheaper) pcie sata card (also jmb585), it might be preferable to have a 10g nic in that extra slot, because errors on network traffic might be easier to detect/fix and have lower impact, having disks doing strange things because o f pcie problems might be more dangerous

 

On 3/17/2022 at 12:34 AM, Deadpool said:

p JMB585 there wouldn't be any major problem, just maybe update the extra.lzma

no need for that as jmb585/asm1166 are ahci compatible the ahci driver in synologys kernel will handle it

 

we had some discussion about pcie 3.0 and newer sata chips and afaik there is nothing newer/better the jmb585 and asm1166 (and both are pcie 3.0 and "only" support two lanes and i've not seen affordable cards combing two of these with a pcie multiplexer for better use of 4 lanes in a slot and more sata ports - thats more the domain of sas controllers and as sata is downward compatible to sata most people end up using more capable sas controller)

https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/35882-new-sataahci-cards-with-more-then-4-ports-and-no-sata-multiplexer/?tab=comments#comment-172511

 

Edited March 20, 2022 by IG-88

[Deadpool]

30 minutes ago, flyride said:

M.2 is a type of port which is an interface into a SATA controller, or a miniaturized PCIe slot, or both (configurable to one or the other).

If it is NVMe compatible or M-key, it's a PCIe slot.  It should be PCIe 1x, 2x or 4x, depending upon the motherboard implementation.

 

The card itself can be PCIe 1x, 2x or 4x as well.  The actual lanes in use is defined by the slot or card with the least lanes.

 

Maximum bandwidth of a SATA-3 port is 600 MBps.  Maximum bandwidth of a 5-port card would be 3 GBps.  This requires SSD's as real-world performance of spinning disks max out around 200MBps per channel.

 

PCIe 3.0 performance per lane is roughly 1 GBps.

Thus, a 1x connection will definitely be maxed out by 5 channels of SSD

2x connection would potentially be maxed out with SSD (but probably ok with spinning disk)

4x will always have headroom regardless of the SATA device types

Thanks, all this information solved almost all my doubts.

 

Just to add some extra info:

 

-The M.2 card seems to use 2x tranfer (key M).

-The 4 drives will be HDDs

-Motherboard is Asus B365-A and states that M.2 port is like 4x PCIe 3.0 (key M)

 

So, regarding the info you provided, port PCIe 1x 3.0 is not an option even with the half amount of disks.

 

Best optios is the M.2 port if I cand find a similar card but 4x instead of 2x like the link I shared.

 

I understand it correctly?

Edited March 16, 2022 by Deadpool

[flyride]

Motherboard spec sheet says M.2 port is PCIe 3.0 x4

That is also typical with M-key designation.

2.0 is half the bandwidth of 3.0, so this matters.

 

So the analysis should be with the card and per the parameters I gave you above.  You should be ok with only HDD's, but if you want SSD's I agree look for a 4x card if such a thing exists.  Second issue of course is that it must be compatible with existing drivers or extra.lzma.

[Deadpool]

11 minutes ago, flyride said:

Motherboard spec sheet says M.2 port is PCIe 3.0 x4

That is also typical with M-key designation.

2.0 is half the bandwidth of 3.0, so this matters.

 

So the analysis should be with the card and per the parameters I gave you above.  You should be ok with only HDD's, but if you want SSD's I agree look for a 4x card if such a thing exists.  Second issue of course is that it must be compatible with existing drivers or extra.lzma.

Thanks again, I edited the message to avoid confusing people who read the topic.

 

I will take look if there is a 4x card like this one.

 

In relation to the second issue, I supposed that using the chip JMB585 there wouldn't be any major problem, just maybe update the extra.lzma

Edited March 16, 2022 by Deadpool

[Deadpool]

Ok, so I checked all the info here. I reject the M2 sata card based on the @IG-88 feedback and in addition, I saw that motherboard disable the onboard sata_1 port if M2 port is used for storage.

 

So I have 2 Pcie 1x 3.0 and the graphic slot Pcie 16x 3.0 available. I just need 4 more Sata ports, so, one option will be using 2 cards 1x, with 2 ports each one. Or find a 4x card, with 4 sata ports using the 16x port but I think this is not possible.

 

I know the initial question is solved and I marked like that but if you have any advice about this I would appreciate it.

[flyride]

4 hours ago, Deadpool said:

in addition, I saw that motherboard disable the onboard sata_1 port if M2 port is used for storage.

 

That commonly is true IF the M.2 port is mapped to SATA (for a SATA SSD instead of NVMe).  The use case you were contemplating would not disable the port.

[Deadpool]

3 hours ago, flyride said:

 

That commonly is true IF the M.2 port is mapped to SATA (for a SATA SSD instead of NVMe).  The use case you were contemplating would not disable the port.

Ok, but knowing the mecanical and stability issues shared by IG-88 I prefer to explore the other options instead.

[flyride]

Yep, that all makes sense.  In the end you are trying to get more PCIe slots so maybe another motherboard is in order...

[Deadpool]

2 hours ago, flyride said:

Yep, that all makes sense.  In the end you are trying to get more PCIe slots so maybe another motherboard is in order...

Well, there is no room for more HDDs, I modded the case and 10 HDDs is the maximum, 6 onboard and 4 extra with the cards. I have available the two pcie 1x, so I think I will use them for two cards and I will be happy with 10 HDDs for a long time. If I need more HDDs I will consider to move to a nee setup in the future.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Deadpool

[IG-88]

if you pcie 1x slots are open at the ends you could insert a normal jmb585 based pcie card or look for a jmb585 based pcie 1x card

you dont need to use all ports of a card, with pcie 3.0 and 1000MByte/s of one lane there should be no performance issue with 3 disks and even 4 might not be that bad (most conventional hdd's max out between 250 and 300 MB/s and often the low iops is more of a problem)

edit: alternative here is a short flex riser pcie 1x -> pcie 4x (or a open 1x slot), would still be pcie 1x but no mechanical problem inserting a bigger card (usually no problem having a pcie 2/4/8/16 card running with just one lane)

 

other scenario is to use two jmb582 bases 1x cards (same chip gen as 585 but only two sata ports on that chip, they should be cheap)

that way you still have the 16x slot usable and m.2 is still unused

you ould still use 10G nic or nvme ssd's

Edited March 21, 2022 by IG-88

[Deadpool]

13 hours ago, IG-88 said:

 other scenario is to use two jmb582 bases 1x cards (same chip gen as 585 but only two sata ports on that chip, they should be cheap)

that way you still have the 16x slot usable and m.2 is still unused

you ould still use 10G nic or nvme ssd's

This scenario is what I am considering in a previous comment. I saw a card 1x with jmS 585 chip and 4 ports, if this kind of card is not enough for 4 HDDs I thin I will buy two of the other with two sata ports.

 

PS: What's the different between jmB 585 and jmS 585?

[IG-88]

9 hours ago, Deadpool said:

I thin I will buy two of the other with two sata ports.

that will save about 40-50 bugs and if you only have room for up to 10 disks its not likely you will miss the additional ports of a 4-6 port card (jmb585/asm1166)

9 hours ago, Deadpool said:

PS: What's the different between jmB 585 and jmS 585?

there is a jms585? JMS seems to be USB based solutions from jmicron

https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/1

 

i cant find any specs about jms585 and thats good reason to avoid cards claiming to have that chip, we know about JMB585/582 and can see specs (-> jmicron homepage), thats a good reason to choose jmb585/582

maybe the jms858/jmb585 is just a typo in chinese, i guess some might not be that familiar with the "foreign" alphabet and just made some mistake and used "S" instead of "B", both look "curvy"  as capitals

[Deadpool]

1 hour ago, IG-88 said:

that will save about 40-50 bugs and if you only have room for up to 10 disks its not likely you will miss the additional ports of a 4-6 port card (jmb585/asm1166)

there is a jms585? JMS seems to be USB based solutions from jmicron

https://www.jmicron.com/products/list/1

 

i cant find any specs about jms585 and thats good reason to avoid cards claiming to have that chip, we know about JMB585/582 and can see specs (-> jmicron homepage), thats a good reason to choose jmb585/582

maybe the jms858/jmb585 is just a typo in chinese, i guess some might not be that familiar with the "foreign" alphabet and just made some mistake and used "S" instead of "B", both look "curvy"  as capitals

Thanks a LOT 😉

[Polanskiman]

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