Hey everyone. I’ve got both Rock 5b+ and the Penta SATA HAT that I’ve been using with RPI5. Now since I’ve got the Rock 5b+ I’d like to utilize its faster pci interface to use in a RAID with the aforementioned HAT. It seems if I get the right m2 to ipex adapter and the right ipex cable I’ll be able to use the hat. Can anyone recommend me the proper parts that I can utilize for that?
Radxa Rock 5B+ and Radxa Penta SATA HAT
I’m not sure if it’s that good idea, penta sata HAT was designed for credit card SBCs with ports straight to GPIO pins. With Rock5B+ (or any pico itx board) You will get that rotated by 90 degrees with SoC (that needs to be cooled) just under the HAT. I’m also not sure about power requirements for bigger and more demanding board, gpio pins may be not sufficient, so You will end up with HAT that don’t fit perfectly, blocks cooling for SoC and needs clumsy cabling and power.
There were available adapters for Rock3/4 series, but m.2 port was placed on side, so You will need to rotate ipex by 180 degree for it. This would look awful 
Try to assemble that and get first ideas about this setup, please post photos of that here.
Try to measure distance from ipex to m.2 port. as I said it will need to flip it’s orientation.
Reconsider this, ASM1166 card (one or two) will be more compact, You can get two of them for 5B+.
Or try to play with hat location different than on gpio, this one is easier to extend with cheap cabling.
I don’t know details of Your setup, but maybe Rock 3A is better idea? You can get it with A+E 2.5G adapter for A+E slot, it has m.2 slot with 2x pcie 3.0. It will perfectly fit with this HAT and it’s probably more power efficient. On the other hand it’s cpu is slower, and 8GB mem is max for that board.
My setup is that I already have Rock 5b+, SATA HAT and even the same nvme -> sata adapters that you show on the photo. I also have 5 3.5-inch hdds.
The problem for me with the nvme -> sata adapters is that I have to power the SBC and HDDs separately and I don’t really like that. I would really like to have a single adapter to power both parts of the setup.
If You are talking about 3.5 inch hdds then it would not be compact build for sure.
For power You can just use solid 12V for everything and step down converter for 5V rail. Rock 5B+ don’t have to get usb pd to run.
Yet again - try to assemble that in way You want, take photos and then You will find out what length of such cable do You need. Rock 3A, or 4 series have right ipex to m.2 adapters, but still You need to arrange everything. Start with assembly and You will find out what do You need next
I get it that the setup won’t be small, but anyway I’d like it to be as small as possible.
How do you suggest powering the Radxa board? Through GPIO? Do you have a PSU recommendation? I have 60W for Radxa ITX board from Radxa itself, but I’m afraid it might be not enough.
I’m afraid of cheap PSUs since they may be unstable and eventually cause HDD/board failure. I’ve looked at Flex ATX PSU, but they are too big, plus it would be an overkill in terms of power.