Sata Splitters?

[Gin N Rum 5454]

So I was wondering if there was such thing as a data splitter?
I don't know much about making servers but I wanted to make one that has a lot of storage space. I was wondering, if I got a motherboard that only had 4 sata could you run more than 4 hard drives using some type of splitter?
Or do you need the same amount of sata ports in your motherboard for the same amount of hard drives?

[Lurick]

I don't believe so however you can get cards with mini sas and then get a mini sas to 4x sata cable. SFF-8087 to SATA is the most common type of cable used I believe but definitely make sure you get a SFF-8087 card

[Needfuldoer]

Not for SATA, but SAS controllers can use "SAS expanders", basically hubs that let you plug more drives in.

[GuiltySpark_]

If you're just looking for an HBA, these can be had for cheap. Can run an additional 8 drives.

 

 

 

[mariushm]

You can get HBA adapters like the one above. You can get them with even more ports, like this 16 port one for example https://www.ebay.com/itm/134567762381

 

Some sata controllers also support port multipliers  - basically one sata port is converted to 5 sata ports, but it works like a network switch or hub - the 5 devices connected to the port multiplier share the 600 MB/s of the sata port ... if you make a mass storage nas where transfer speeds don't matter they could be an option

An example of such port multiplier : https://www.ebay.com/itm/166380592429

 

There's some chinese boards with 20 or more sata ports that basically do this crappy trick - they have a 4 port sata controller (some asmedia or jmicron) and then they use 4 port multiplier chips to create 20 sata ports from the original 4 sata ports - here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/355281352056

Basically you get 20 sata ports sharing 1 pci-e lane, so all 20 drives share around 950 MB/s with the system

 

The HBA adapter above gives maximum speed to each sata port, you're just limited by the pci-e x8 slot, so basically ~ 7 GB/s for pci-e 3.0, 4 GB for pci-e 2.0

[Gin N Rum 5454]

Thanks for the help all. I understood some of the terminology used but I will do more research into all this server stuff haha