Designed for those looking to build a NAS on a budget, the Radxa SAT HAT allows you to connect up to four 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives to a Raspberry Pi simultaneously.
The ROCK Pi SATA HATs come in 2 models:
- Dual/Quad SATA HAT
- Penta SATA HAT
The Dual/Quad SATA HAT is designed for Raspberry Pi 4 as well as ROCK Pi 4, and the Penta SATA HAT is designed for ROCK Pi 4 only.
According to Radxa, the SATA HAT utilises USB 3.0 busses on the Raspberry Pi 4 and supports 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives. The SATA HAT also supports USB Type-C power delivery, allowing you to connect a Raspberry Pi and 2.5-inch drives simultaneously without needing several power supplies.
Dual/Quad SATA HAT
The Dual/Quad SATA HAT utilize the USB3 buses on Raspberry Pi 4 or ROCK Pi 4.
It has the following features:
- Up to 4x HDD/SSD, support 2.5inch or 3.5inch SSD
- Utilize two independent USB3 buses on Raspberry Pi 4
- Type C power input with USB PD/QC support for both 2.5inch SSD and Raspberry Pi 4
- External standard ATX power supply support for 3.5inch HDD
- Fan and heatsink for Raspberry Pi 4 CPU cooling
- Support HDD suspend mode
- Support software RAID 0/1/5
- Optional PWM control fan for HDD heat dispatching
- Support UASP
- Optional OLED display for IP Address/Storage info
For 3.5 inch HDD, a standard ATX PSU is required to power the HDD and the Raspberry PI itself. With 4 3.5inch HDDs, the PSU should be 60W or more.
For 2.5 inch HDDs, you can just use the USB PD/QC power adapter(30W power adapter is enough) to power the HDD/SSD and the Raspberry Pi 4 itself.
The USB-powered Dual SATA HAT and Quad SATA HAT support up to 10TB or 20TB, respectively. In either case, there are separate models for the Raspberry Pi 4B and a model for the Rock Pi 4 that also supports the Raspberry Pi 3B or 3B+.
All these models include one (dual) or two (Quad) USB 3.0 ports connected to the Pi’s USB ports via a JMicron JMS561 (PDF) USB-to-SATA bridge. They all support up to 400 MB/s throughput, although this would presumably drop when connected to the USB 2.0 equipped RPi 3B/3B+.
When used with 2.5-inch SATA drives, the Dual SATA HAT and Quad SATA HAT can be powered by a standard, >=30W USB PD/QC power adapter connected via the HATs’ USB Type C slots. Of course, for 3.5-inch drives, you will need a standard, external ATX power supply, and you’ll need a 60W unit to power four 3.5-inch drives. In either case, the PSUs can also power the Raspberry Pi.
The Dual SATA HAT and Quad SATA HAT offer UASP support in addition to HDD suspend mode. The HATs are equipped with a heatsink and LEDs, as well as PWM fan and OLED display interfaces that support an optional SATA HAT Top Board.
Penta SATA HAT
Above all, the penta SATA HAT utilize the M.2/PCIe on ROCK Pi 4 to expand to up 5x SATA ports, it works only for ROCK Pi 4. In addition, it adapt four internal SATA and one eSATA design which makes the connection flexible if the user wants to use external disks.
- Up to 5x HDD/SSD, support 2.5inch or 3.5inch SSD, up to 100T Storage
- 4x SATA + 1x eSATA with power
- Utilize two lanes PCIe 2.1 buses on ROCK Pi 4
- Type C power input with USB PD support for both 2.5inch SSD and ROCK Pi 4
- External standard ATX power supply support for 3.5inch HDD
- Support HDD suspend mode
- Support software RAID 0/1/5
- Optional PWM control fan for HDD heat dispatching
- Optional OLED display for IP/Storage info
Four of the Penta slots are configured for SATA while the fifth supports eSATA with power. The eSATA interface “makes the setup more flexible for the use of external disks,” says Radxa. With the help of an optional $5 eSATA-to-SATA cable, you can hook up an external 3.5-inch drive.
The Penta’s USB Type-C PD port can power both a 2.5-inch drive and the Rock Pi 4. There’s also support for hooking up an external standard ATX supply for an external 3.5-inch drive.
Prices
The Dual SATA HAT and Quad SATA HAT are at a price for $25 and $35. The Penta SATA HAT sells for $49.
