SATA drives connected through a PCIe to SATA expansion card could not be recognized / read

Hello,
I am a beginner in setting up a server and this the first time I am doing this. However, I came across some problems and would appreciate any help from experts.

I had an very old windows pc running windows 7 OS which is not in used so I decided to turn it into a server. So I installed and ran the TrueNAS server OS in a usb flash drive and I managed to enter the interface on another computer with the IP address.

Now here comes the problem, since the old motherboard has only 4 Sata ports and I have 18 HDD for this server, I got one of those PCIE adapter card with SATA expansion slots. I tried connecting the other HDDs but in the interface I can only see drives that is connected to the SATA ports on the motherboard and not those connected to the PCIe expansion card SATA slots.
Please note that too I ran windows again but windows can read the drives in PCIe expansion SATA slots so the hardware and components should be in a healthy condition. Besides, in the boot menu of the motherboard, drives in the PCIe expansion card could not be read aswell.

That sounds like the driver for the card isn’t included in TrueNAS.

What’s the card make/model. What does it show up as if you issue the command “lspci”

It’s normal for drives attached via an expansion card not to show in the BIOS.

Before you continue pls read :

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You need a SAS HBA. Period.
9305-16i, or 9207-8i/9300-8i + expander