Recommendations for a SATA PCI expansion card

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 01 Sep 2009, 21:43

I'm a bit tired of being limited to only 7 hard drives (6 SATA and 1 IDE) by my motherboards available slots. I want to get a SATA PCI expansion card with at least 2 slots on it because that is how many spaces i have for drives left. RAID is not desired at all, so if there is a good card without RAID please tell me about it.

I just want something simple and dependable.

Thanks for your input!

DaFox · Post by **DaFox** » 01 Sep 2009, 23:08

well you could give me some sata drives to make room on your motherboard ;)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151037

Post by **Abram** » 02 Sep 2009, 01:39

Have you considered a drive box?

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 02 Sep 2009, 03:06

I like to keep everything inside the case if I can. Especially since a drive box would require me to use up another electrical outlet on my UPS.

Also that card you posted DaFox is a bit out of my price range.

Post by **maherie** » 02 Sep 2009, 06:42

I did some looking into this a while ago, and basicly couldn't get the card I wanted here in AUS... I'd love to see what happens to this thread.. I'll keep tuned in.

whismerhill · Post by **whismerhill** » 02 Sep 2009, 09:51

couldn't find anything very good except promise controllers ( SATA300 TX4 or SATA300 TX4302 )

I'm not keen of promise myself though it's always better than some obscure third party ...

Post by **Abram** » 02 Sep 2009, 10:45

There are sata PCI cards that have inpouts on the back (outside). You could use one of those and feed the cables back into the case.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 02 Sep 2009, 12:21

You mean this sort of thing?

PCI will be horribly bandwidth limiting for SATA... PCI-E 4x is really the minimum you want. Will try to find some links. XFX used to do a 4 port PCI SATA card (was £20 or something) but I can't find it any more. :?

Post by **Gilly** » 02 Sep 2009, 13:32

i wonder if a cheaper solution is to go to 1.5TB disks, rather than adding more disks. I have seen some very expensive controller cards. although, if your adding only 2 ports and dont want something fancy im sure you can find something at a reasonable price

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 02 Sep 2009, 17:06

I suppose two slots might not be enough, if i can use this little doohickey to make a SATA connection externally it might be good.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 02 Sep 2009, 17:19

Generally speaking, if you're looking for a card that does more than 2 SATA ports, you're looking at workstation/server grade equipment... and that is anything but cheap. Some of those controller cards come in around £200, but others are £4000... :(

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 02 Sep 2009, 17:24

Some of those controller cards come in around £200, but others are £4000... :(

": (" is right.

whismerhill · Post by **whismerhill** » 03 Sep 2009, 15:43

the ones I posted have 4 sata or 2 sata & 2esata
but yeah as others said, PCI will limit HDD performance by a lot ...

skeeder · Post by **skeeder** » 03 Sep 2009, 23:47

I used a cheap (I mean cheap $20) SATA PCI card for my NF2 days. (despite its -S part I had 4 SATA drives).

My take...if its for storage or light usage...like music etc...you'll be fine. really. sure transfering things to it will take longer, but its way cheaper than dropping more money on a sata card than your motherboard.

Mine had 2 slots, and RAID 0/1, but like I said...you really won't notice unless you make it a master drive or something silly.

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 12 Oct 2009, 20:14

Relevant Thread Necro:

I just dropped this into my case with two 1.5 TB Samsungs.

Currently I'm transferring about 100GB of stuff over to it and its going at about 61MB/s which is plenty fast for me.

Definitely won't be using this for RAID though, to much hassle for not enough reward.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 13 Oct 2009, 11:45

Cool. That PCI link is a huge bottleneck. Then again, 61MB/s ain't half bad. I was expecting you to say maybe 2/3rds of that...

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 13 Oct 2009, 17:17

It's not really a huge bottleneck actually, before putting this in I never saw above 100MB/s from Sata to Sata drive on my motherboard. So it's not so bad in comparison.

Post by **Gilly** » 13 Oct 2009, 18:00

It's not really a huge bottleneck actually, before putting this in I never saw above 100MB/s from Sata to Sata drive on my motherboard. So it's not so bad in comparison.

using the new SSD's its a problem. 61MB/ sec is pretty good imo too!

any interface that can run 50% of its capacity sustained is pretty good imo :)

if the disk is being used for storage, 61MB/ sec is ample, may lead to long load times on an OS disk though :)

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