If it's only 2 TB I'd go ssd.

And don't get a super cheap one, but something from like Samsung or Sandisk or WD or sth.

You can go PCIe to m.2 pcie nvme.

I've been happy with Crucial's MX500 SSDs.

Is there any other way (except for buying a PCIe to SATA card) to add more drives in the motherboard?

The site does say "1 x M.2".

If you dont need the drive to be fast and want best bang for your buck storage capacity, HDD is the way to go.

If you want speed and are ok with a higher price, SSD is best. Used enterprise HDD are usually a good value. Im in the US so not sure about where to purchase exactly.

Something to consider is if the drive you are storing the os and files on are the same, using am HDD will make it slower on start up.

If ambient noise is a concern, I'd go with an SSD. If money is tight, an HDD will give you the best value.

My server is in an otherwise quiet home office/sitting room, so I went with an 8TB SSD (870 QVO). Spinning disks make a fair bit of noise just waking up, let alone the actual file operations.

As someone who had jellyfin running on HDD and moved it to a solid state: it's a night and day difference when loading things. The reduced storage capacity for the same cost is very much worth it IMO.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.

[Thread #881 for this sub, first seen 23rd Jul 2024, 23:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Going in a different direction here:

Buy a stable SSD with your budget to host your OS. Then call around to computer repair places, or E-Waste recycling joints, and ask if they have any old HDD drives laying around that can be recycled to use. Use these older HDDs to store your media and things that can be replaced. You may even get lucky enough to have a few larger HDDs where you can make a backup of your SATA HDD over USB every so often.

At that capacity, I'll cast another vote for SSD if at all possible, but you can certainly get small HDDs pretty cheap now.

If you want the easiest and cheapest way to add more drives, do a search for "sata port multiplier". These cards go for around $25US on Amazon or Ebay. They are NOT fast! It uses a single SATA port to run up to five drives, so all the drives split the bandwidth, but long ago I ran some of them for a few years without any problems. You simply run a sata and power cable from your motherboard to the card, then plug in your drives, it doesn't even require a slot on your motherboard.

My recommendation would be buying a used HDD at a local online marketplace, if you want bang for the buck, if you don't, then buy a SSD from AliExpress(important to check reviews)