Hey guys, I have ran out of SATA ports on my mobo and need to add some more, ideally 4 but I'll settle for 2. I don't need RAID, but any card that supports it will only be a bonus down the line. In the list of things that I don't need but could be nice is SATA 6Gb/s. No drives that can take advantage of it yet, but probably soon. I had seen this one, but it seems to be limited to 1.5Gb/s and I can't find any info on drive size limit. This is another issue I'm facing, some of these cards are limited in what size drives they can take. Those Adaptec hardware RAID cards are capped at 2TB/array for instance, why in this day and age? I'd also considered something like the Highpoint Rocket, but there are only 2 ports and it's pci-e. I do have a spare pci-e slot but it's right in the middle of my mobo and getting cables there would be a nightmare! So in order of importance: No volume size limit 4 SATA ports PCI Interface RAID Can anyone suggest anything? If there's nothing perfect I think the forerunners are the Asus U3S6 or the Highpoints.
Asus U3S6 from the March issue could be worth looking at. £23.48 inc.VAT and has 2 SATA 6Gb/s but also has 2 USB 3.0 aswell. Not the ideal 4 you were looking for but a nice bonus in the USB 3.0's.
ShakeyJake - The ones you linked to can take 2TB per port once flashed with the latest firmware. (I have 3 of them in my server)
ShakeyJake - the one you linked will only do 1.5Gb/s cos it is a PCI card, if you want/need faster then it will have to be a PCI-E card.
Sorry to steal the thread I wanted to add a the same type of card how do i know if i have a PCI-E slot? Thanks in advance Mark
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express From top to bottom in picture below: PCI-E x4 , PCI-E x16, PCI-E x1, PCI-E x16, PCI
I need more SATA ports, too, but I need more power cables before I can worry about this. I've actually run out of PSU cables with SATA molexes on them. Dilemma: do I try and find more, or spam IDE-to-SATA power cable converters at it, or does this lack imply that I'm nearing what my PSU can handle? It's only a 550W but I didn't think HDDs used that much power...
I would of thought that if your PSU comes with n SATA power connectors + y 4 pin molex connectors then it can handle all (x + y) being connected - or am I being optimistic?
No, that's probably right, it just aggravates me that over half the molex they included were IDE - who the hell has 10 IDE devices anymore? Or ever since the 90s, really? I shall nab some cable converters off scan. Another thing, some PCI SATA controllers are described as RAID-capable, others not; is this only for if you want to set up a RAID from the BIOS level? I did all mine via windows storage management, turning them all into dynamic discs and so on; do I still need to get a self-described 'RAID-capable' controller to be able to do it that way?
Generally RAID capable SATA contollers (add on boards) will have the ability to do RAID at the hardware level. What RAID options you have will depend on the controller but generally more options = more £. The cheapest usually just do RAID 0 or 1, sometimes both. The more expensive ones will do RAID 5, 6 10 etc. If you are using software RAID then these options are irrelevent to you as all you want are the ports, not the added features. I have found that trying to find cheap non-RAID SATA controllers is harder though.
x1 = x1 bandwidth, x4 = x4 bandwidth etc, etc (we won't get into what happens to x16 when you use SLI/Crossfire). Manufacturers will usually state the bandwidth of PCI-E slots in the motherboard specs. No, the colour scheme is dependent on the dubious design taste of the manufacturers and will vary between boards (even when made by the same manufacturer).
Ah well if the Silicon Image card can take 2TB drives (Thanks IanW) then I think that's the one to go for.
