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Storage Cards - NVMe vs stupid sata tricks

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So today I found something funny that looks like an awful way to mimic a Warpdrive at a bad price.

1734942854552.png


Could be a good way to unshelve some sata SSDs and assemble a quick RAID test over PCI-E g2x1 but the bracket wants a full size case.
Sometimes I find far better priced magical abominations such as this:

1734944817613.png


Only two drives but on a g4x8 connection that could probably be fairly compared if slotted into an open x1 slot.
They both look incredibly useful for very specific storage needs but which one seems more appropriate to throw into an antique with some scrap gen2 connections?
I'm trying to come up with a way to make a cheap 4TB RAID shared over 10GbE SFP. Even sticking to a simple pair RAID, the current state of the storage market makes it weird.

1734945337641.png


Wat do?
 
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Sometimes I find far better priced magical abominations such as this:

1734944817613.png


Only two drives but on a g4x8 connection that could probably be fairly compared if slotted into an open x1 slot.
That heatsink is just a decoy. It's not a PCIe switch so it needs a motherboard with x4 + x4 bifurcation - and of course also a connector with 8 electrically connected lanes.

This one would be what you're looking for.

All in all there are at least four different multi-M.2 cards from Glotrends:
PA20 and PA40 with PCIe switch for 2 or 4 SSDs
PA21 and PA41 without PCIe switch for 2 or 4 SSDs.

Sabrent has several models too but I can't decode which ones include a PCIe switch:
 
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