Since I can utilise the PCIe and I have 2 HDDs - do I just need PCIe to SATA HBA adapter and power + cables?
Can you please tell me which exactly?
Potentially yes. I can't recommend any specific hardware as I've not done this with a Pi5. What I can do is provide details of what I'm using on my CM4 based NAS.
But first a couple of questions:
- Are these 2.5" or 3.5" drives?
3.5" drives need a 12v supply as well as a 5v one and the Pi cannot provide that. - Are you anticipating significant data transfers between the two drives? Or using them in RAID1?
You'll get more bandwidth per active drive if you split them over the two USB3 ports as those are backed by four PCIe lanes rather than the single lane exposed for general use. That said, network clients won't notice as they'll be further restricted by the network speed (and congestion).
Now, my hardware:
- CM4 1GB lite no WiFi
- CM4 I/O board
- ASM1184e based 1 to 4 PCIe switch
- Two ASM1062 four port PCIe x1 SATA cards
- One VL805 based USB3 PCIex1 card (because I had it to hand and because even with shared bandwidth it's still faster than USB2)
- Four 3.5" SATA drives
- Two 2.5" SATA drives
- One USB3 flash drive
- One ATX PC PSU
- One mATX PC case
Power and data cables to the drives are standard SATA cables. The PCIe switch also requires power via a standard SATA or four pin HDD power connector. Power to the CM4 is via the four pin external power connector on the I/O board from a four pin FDD power cable with the 5v line disconnected (because that's both easier and less destructive than modding the I/O board).
The biggest gotcha I can see with the Pi 5 (power supply aside) is that you can't just plug in a PCIe x1 card. Or an M.2 card. You first need something to convert the FFC cable/connector to something more standard. Many of the existing M.2 HATs/bases should be able to do that if you add an M.2 to PCIe adapter (one that connects to M.2 and provides a PCIe slot not the other way around) . There are also M.2 SATA controllers but be careful with those as some expect the M.2 slot to have a SATA controller behind it (and will not work without one) which the Pi does not. The last option is a dedicated FFC to PCIe x1 slot adapter board.
Power depends on what your drives need (voltage and current). I use an ATX PSU because it can run everything with power to spare.
Lastly, no Pi model supports booting from SATA drives/controllers. You can however boot from SD (or USB) with the root partition on a SATA drive.
If you need to know more about the software side, see Building A Pi Based NAS
Statistics: Posted by thagrol — Thu Sep 04, 2025 11:55 pm