I've been working on solving a problem, not even gonna TLDR it, but the solution I need involves more cowbell. Cowbell in this case is SATA-interface SSDs all presentable and nice to a Proxmox overlord for some Ceph OSD action.
I stumbled upon this bad boy and it solved half my problem.
https://preview.redd.it/j5mbn45102ge1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5e227fc478e767b58de63a20a529b191c1f288d
That's a PCIe adapter with integrated SATA controller that can service FIVE m.2 SATA SSDs. I tested it, it'll handle all 5 full-throttle at their rated speeds, assuming you have m.2 SATA SSDs that aren't pieces of shit. I'm looking at you, Toshiba and Lite-On.
I'm working with motherboards that don't support booting from PCIe NVMe devices, but they'll fancy something behind a controller they recognize, so these also free up a SATA slot for a spinner or a larger SATA SSD.
The other half of my problem is that I also have an abundance of mSATA SSDs, and I want to be able to slap them onto this kind of thing as well. Fundamentally, this should be a slam dunk, right? mSATA and m.2 SATA are electrically interchangeable with the right pinouts, but high and low, I've looked all over and no one anywhere seems to make a mSATA adapter board with a controller and support for more than 2 SSDs.
If anyone happens to know of this sorta device, please do tell. Otherwise I gotta finally get rid of these mSATA drives gathering dust.
