Used mining rig for NAS?

[bmoturtleco]

So I have a now worthless mining rig. Instead of trashing it or otherwise losing all my investment. I'm thinking of converting it to something more useful. My thought was to use it as a NAS. However I'm unsure if the pcie riser cards can run adapter cards. My thought is to get a ssd/m.2/nvme expansion card. Then plug it in to one of the 12 risers I have. The main board is a mining specific board with no other real use. Instead of normal pcie slots it has 12 usb ports to use risers. I don't even know if the system will do what I want but I thought it's better than just sitting collecting dust. Any advice or help would be appreciated. Also any other ideas on what to use a 12 gpu mining rig for would be great. Of course I'm still debating on what to do with 12 rx 6600 xt's. But that's an issue for another post.

[Markski]

PCIe risers should not have issues with storage adapter cards. If it's going to be a NAS, do you really need to do it through risers, though?

[jaslion]

Basically nope. This is a disaster in the making.

 

Sell what you can and thats it such is the mining risk

[bmoturtleco]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:37 AM, Markski said:

PCIe risers should not have issues with storage adapter cards. If it's going to be a NAS, do you really need to do it through risers, though?

Well the issue is that my motherboard doesn't have pcie slots. It has 12 usb ports. So if I was going to use any cards they would have to be on risers.

[bmoturtleco]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:37 AM, jaslion said:

Basically nope. This is a disaster in the making.

 

Sell what you can and thats it such is the mining risk

Can you elaborate on why? I understand there could be limitations but I'm just trying to use what I can still use. Otherwise I'm sol.  There's really no value in my rig. I should've never gotten into mining but hindsight is 2020.

[Needfuldoer]

26 minutes ago, bmoturtleco said:

Well the issue is that my motherboard doesn't have pcie slots. It has 12 usb ports. So if I was going to use any cards they would have to be on risers.

They're probably just cramming PCIe down USB 3.0 cables, since they're readily available, cheap, and have enough conductors in them to carry PCIe 1x. There's no reason any PCIe card shouldn't work at the other end, but you'll be bandwidth-limited.

 

If you want to remove any doubt, you can always get a normal motherboard that's compatible with your CPU and RAM.

[bmoturtleco]

14 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

They're probably just cramming PCIe down USB 3.0 cables, since they're readily available, cheap, and have enough conductors in them to carry PCIe 1x. There's no reason any PCIe card shouldn't work at the other end, but you'll be bandwidth-limited.

 

If you want to remove any doubt, you can always get a normal motherboard that's compatible with your CPU and RAM.

Here is the exact board I'm using.

https://www.newegg.com/p/1HD-00K3-00003?item=9SIAUUEHFV5113

 

I'm trying to recoup what I can. I know it's best to just get different hardware but I was just playing with the idea of using it for something else. I had even thought of using it for video editing but then that still creates the heat and power draw issue that I'm trying to avoid.