It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/s4lt3d_h4sh on 2025-05-25 18:25:33.

Hey folks, I’ve got a Lenovo M80q Gen 4 Tiny that I’m using in my homelab. It has a built-in Wi-Fi card on an M.2 slot (probably E-keyed), but I’m not using Wi-Fi at all.

Unfortunately, this model doesn’t have a full PCIe slot soldered onto the motherboard, so standard PCIe HBAs are out of the question. That’s why I’m wondering:

Is it possible to replace the Wi-Fi card with some sort of SAS HBA or similar interface to connect a JBOD enclosure full of HDDs? Any M.2-to-SAS (or M.2-to-PCIe then to HBA) options that actually work in this kind of setup?

I’m running Proxmox and planning to use TrueNAS or similar to manage the disks. Open to creative solutions, including USB 3.2-to-SATA workarounds or other tricks you’ve seen work with Tiny PCs like this.

Thanks in advance!