The Radxa Penta SATA HAT leverages the PCIe interface on Raspberry Pi 5 SBC to add up to five 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA drives through four SATA connectors and an eSATA connector and enables NAS designs with the latest SBC from Raspberry Pi Limited.
The Radxa’s Penta SATA HAT was initially launched in 2019 as an accessory for the Rock Pi 4 SBC powered by a Rockchip RK3399 processor and an M.2 PCIe socket since Raspberry Pi competitors have been exposing PCIe interfaces for years. It turns out the exact same Penta SATA HAT design can be reused with the Raspberry Pi 5 by providing a new PCIe FPC cable and updating the configuration scripts.
Radxa Penta SATA HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 specifications:
- 4x SATA interfaces + 1x eSATAp for up 100TB storage via 5x 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDD/SSD
- Host Connection – Flat cable with 2-lane PCIe 2.1 via JMB585 PCIe to SATA controller
- Storage Features – HDD suspend mode, software RAID 0/1/5
- Misc
- Optional PWM control fan for HDD heat dispatching
- Optional OLED display for IP/Storage info
- Power Supply
- 1x USB Type C power input with USB PD support for both 2.5-inch HDD/SSD and the SBC
- External standard ATX power supply support for 3.5-inch HDD
Accessories are exactly the same, but Radxa had to design a new custom FPC cable to connect to the original Penta SATA HAT PCIe connector – shown on the left side in the photo above – and the Raspberry Pi FFC PCIe connector.
The other change is the configuration method (up to PCIe Gen3) for Raspberry Pi OS which is explained on the Radxa documentation website. The HAT Wiki still points to the older install script for Radxa boards for now, but you should use the method in the first link for the Raspberry Pi 5 if that’s the board you are using. This solution should also you to create your own Raspberry Pi 5 NAS with the quad-bay 2.5-inch metal case or a 5-bay for 3.5-inch drives as shown below.
Radxa is working on opening stores on Aliexpress and Amazon to provide easier purchase methods to their customers, and they’ve listed the Penta SATA HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 on Amazon, but with no price for now. The Penta SATA HAT Pi 5 kit can still be purchased on Arace for $44.99 plus shipping.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Is there any bottleneck because the interface with gpio-fpc?
They also sell via https://shop.allnetchina.cn – I got few Rock 4C at time of launch. But Aliexpress will be much better.
Some users requested just that fpc alone to upgrade from rock4 to pi5, but this is still not available.
Also pi5 has only one pcie 2.0 lane, unofficially one 3.0 lane, jmb chip uses two 3.0 lanes.
> Also pi5 has only one pcie 2.0 lane
BCM2712 has six PCIe Gen3 lanes, four ‘wasted’ to access the RP1 chip, one available at that FPC connector and of course called ‘PCIe 2.0’ to avoid support hassles when PCIe link training fails completely or users suffer from interconnection problems at Gen3 speeds.
So there’s a sixth lane just left wasted? The RP1 is connected by a 4x PCI-E v3.0? That a low of BW for such a meager peripherial.
> So there’s a sixth lane just left wasted?
According to bcm2712.dts yes. There’s also an own GbE MAC inside the SoC so maybe the CM5 will allow for 2 x Gigabit Ethernet and a 2nd user accessible PCIe lane?
> The RP1 is connected by a 4x PCI-E v3.0?
At Gen2 speed since RP1 can’t go higher. With ‘performance issues’ due to ASPM defaults.
What a waste of bandwidth
well, we’re making progress, in the past RPis were a waste of silicon and PCB epoxy.
Well actually they are both of mine a 3 and a 4 are collecting dust here …
Nice design but even with 5xHDDs, you can expect 500 Mo/s transfer speed, which would be limited to 120 Mo/s on gigabit ethernet. Goes directly in “drop in trash” for me.
I would say not the speed is the goal but playing with nowadays obsolete raid levels and maybe expanding the storage by choosing cheaper but more drives. Definitely SBCs are not known for crazy bandwidth and unmatched speed.
How do you provide power to the 5 Bay HDD enclosure?
Through an external ATX power supply.
Darn, I’ve already bought the DC 12V 5A 60W power cable for the Pi5+HAT combo. Wish I had found this article first :’).
All in all I plan to use this HDD enclosure with 5, 3.5in HDD’s and the Pi5+HAT. Is there an ATX PSU you would recommend with this build? Would I also provide power to the Pi5 with the D-Shaped 4 Pin plug on the HAT, or should I still use the dc pin port on the HAT for that?
I’ve just read the documentation in more detail, and it looks like you can use a 12V/5A power supply too:
I’m not sure there’s enough power for five drives including the eSATA drive. But it may work. If not, any ATX PSU should probably do as the system needs about 60 Watts.
Wanted to follow up with this for anyone else coming along. I got this build working. One thing to add to the list of parts you will need is a 24-Pin ATX Power Supply Jumper Bridge Tool to turn on the power supply. I’m guessing you would need a similar piece for other PSU form factors.
If you are using the specific HDD enclosure in this article with 5 bays and subsequently 5 SATA ports, you will need an eSATA to SATA cable for connecting the Pi 5 to 5th drive. The fan on this enclosure is really loud, so I took the back off the enclosure to replace mine with an 80mm 4-pin Noctua NF-A8 PWM, and that helped significantly.
You just need a simple wire between pins 16 and 17 (you have to short the green and a black wire). I’m usually doing that with resistor tails or metallic wires made to attach cables.
What’s nice when you have a control board is that you can also use a GPIO to turn the power supply on: just connect an open drain output to pin 16 (the green one), and when you pull it down, the PSU will turn on. You can probably connect it directly to one of the Pi’s GPIO.
Idk if I can do that with the Pi’s GPIO pins because the SATA HAT powers the Pi through them. That would be a neat solution though.
Are there any reviews on the 5-bay NAS? This is going to be my first nas and I can’t decide between the 5-bay NAS and the metal case. Are the fans loud? If so is it possible to swap them?
Where can I find this 5-bay 3.5 hdd enclosure?
Not sure about this specific model, but you can look for 5-bay 3.5-inch HDD enclosures in any local shops. Something like this: https://amzn.to/4cmmdk5
I think I just found the model in the post: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDxZ0x1