In a previous article – Repurpose.IT – Norco SS-500 from data recovery machine to Truenas Scale storage server – I had swapped the motherboard in my data recovery machine so that the case with the Norco SS-500 could be repurposed to become a Truenas server. I also removed the Silverstone FS202B from that case, so will reuse it in my rebuilt Data Recovery machine.
The motherboard will stay the same – being the MSI B450-A PRO MAX together with its AMD Ryzen 5 3400G cpu and the 16GB of memory. I had another Coolermaster case on hand, so decided to use this together with a Corsair CS750M power supply. I didn’t need to use a 750W power supply, but I had this available. The Silverstone FS202B went into the case to be wired to the Sata1 & Sata2 ports.
This motherboard has a single M.2 slot that can handle NVMe or Sata SSD’s.
The important thing to note in this situation is that if I use an M.2 device, then I lose Sata5 & Sata6. I will have to remember this in future. The M.2 slot will handle both NVMe and Sata devices. I won’t need to use the M.2 slot for Sata devices, as I had bought a couple of M.2 to 2.5″ Sata adapters in 2021. This was the M.2 SSD NGFF (B Key) to 2.5″ SATA 7mm HDD Enclosure Case Converter Adapter and surprisingly, the price hasn’t changed from what I paid. I put my M.2 Sata SSD into one of these and just use one of the 2.5″ bays on the FS202B.
If I want to do copying of NVMe to NVMe, then I will have to use the onboard M.2 slot together with a Orico M.2 NVMe to PCIe 3.0 X16 Expansion Card that I bought for $16 late last year.
Two of the Sata ports are used, so now I need to get drive bays to fit four 3.5″ Sata disks. I could go for a SilverStone FS304-12G 4-Bay Triple 5.25″ Cage for 3.5″ SAS/SATA HDDs which is $179.95 from Mwave. The advantage of this cage is that it is trayless, so the disk drive just slides in and close the door – no more playing around with a screwdrive any time I want to swap a disk.
I decided to go for a SilverStone FS303-12G 3-Bay Double 5.25″ Cage for 3.5″ SAS/SATA HDDs which is $129.95 and has 3 bays in a double 5.25″ cage. Then to have the extra drive, I got this Simplecom SC314 5.25″ Bay Rack to 3.5″ SATA HDD Internal Enclosure for $16.95. Total cost is $146.90. I used a similar enclosure in my desktop gaming machine, so thought it would be suitable. If I needed in the future to expand my 3.5″ drives, then I could replace the Simplecom with another Silverstone 3-bay.
I had to wait nearly two weeks before the Silverstone FS303-12G was available for pickup as it had to be ordered in. Then part of a weekend was spent rebuilding my Data Recovery machine. The rebuild was completed and it was time to test it. On hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have used the Simplecom SC314 as it doesn’t have any indicators on it to show that it’s is actively being accessed.
I should have used the Orico 1106SS-BK CD-ROM Space 3.5″ SATA HDD Mobile Rack that I had used in my gaming machine. It was just a little more expensive at $18 (down from $18.18 when I bought it last) as it would have been better to have the indicators. Maybe in the future, I might swap them over.
Here is the machine now – working away, copying a disk from the Simplecom to the middle slot of the 3-bay. The connections to the motherboard are as follows:
The 2.5″ FS202B has the top slot connected to Sata2 and the bottom slot to Sata1. Next, the Simplecom is connected to Sata3. Then Sata4, Sata5 & Sata6 in upwards order on the FS303. This makes it easy to remember, that the disk slots are in order from bottom to top.
Another Rebuild.IT article completed. Now that I think about it, I should have a raid rebuild article coming up – more on that later. I also found my notebook which contained details that I had written about in Restore.IT, Recover.IT – 2006 – When Murphy’s Law just wasn’t funny anymore! Or pages from the diary of a high-flying IT consultant and troubleshooter!
R.IT 