Hi, I have similar NAS plans and here is my setup.
For the SATA, I bought an M.2 to 5xSATA converter with JMB585 chip. This is a PCIe 3.0 x2 to 5x SATA chip and works nicely with Armbian. I assume with the Radxa Debian it shall work too because the driver is a pretty mature one.
Be careful with the chipset because the JMB575 is a SATA multiplier. On the internet I found articles as some NAS software doesn’t like it hence I decided to go with the PCIe → SATA chipset.
Nevertheless this M2 board is very power hungry. I made some quick measurements:
- Rock 5B alone in idle - 1,4W
- Rock 5B + JMB585 without connected disk - 4,3W
- Rock 5B + JMB585 with 1 connect disk - 9W
The disk consumption is NOT included so this is just the boards!!! Even the M2 card’s heatsink was pretty hot (yeah surprise
) so buy only a card which has heatsink applied.
I didn’t do speed test with this just a quick validation test if it is working.
Also there are other cards with ASM1166 chipset which is a PCIe 3.0 x2 to 6x SATA. I read mixed feedbacks on the internet about it hence I turned ot the JMB585 direction.
The next is the power feed. For 3,5" HDD you need 12V while for the 2,5" HDD/SDD is fine with 5V. The SBC has 5V output on its header but I don’t want to load that one hence I bought a standard 12V PSU and a 12V to 5V DC-to-DC stepdown converter.
And yes with this I can also confirm that the Rock 5B works with a fixed (dummy) 12V input as well. But if you decide to make this power feeding then it is your responsibility … be careful 
The DC-DC converter has a DC plug inpunt and a screw terminal. So I connected the PSU to the DC plug and used the screw terminal to connect a cable which goes to the Rock 5B. You can cut an USB-C cable or you can solder one with a USB-C head.
Regarding the PSU I went with a 100W capacity one. Based on the reviews this one provided the most stable voltage. Don’t buy too big PSU because the effeciency will be worse (even the 100W looks too much to my use-case).
Regarding the brands I had no preference as these are clones of each other. Here is my bill of materials:
- M.2 SATA adapter: Jiaminye M.2 to Sata3.0 Card M.2 PCIE 16Gbps SATA 6G 5 Port Hard Drive Extension Hard Drive Drive Converter Card JMB585 Chip: Amazon.de: Computer & Accessories
- USB-C head: PENGLIN USB 3.1 Type C Male Female Breakout Board, USB C Male Socket Solderable Module, USB C Male Female DIY Board Pack of 10: Amazon.de: Computer & Accessories
2 more links in my next post (new users can post only 2 links.)
Here are some pictures.
