Looking for a SATA controller card

[Lightning983]

Hello,

I was looking arround for some controller cards because i ran out of SATA ports in my storage computer

So i didn't want to get the cheapest one, but on the other hand i don't really want to give out a months pay for some of the stuff out there.

I have to admit this is my 1st time looking for a card like this and i was amazed at how high the prices go... i mean i found a card that goes for about 5000$ !!

That was a bit off topic but anyway here's what i found:

Adaptec 1430SA 157$
HighPoint RocketRAID 2300 190$
HighPoint RocketRAID 2310 236$
HighPoint RocketRAID 3120 2-Channel 233$
LSI SAS3041E-R 4-Port 228$
Promise FastTrak TX4650 ,Bulk 178$
Promise FastTrak TX4650 ,Retail 220$

Okay here's what i know (not a lot ), the retail-bulk difference is probably in the cables and manual packed, all of the cards are PCI-E, although some are X1 and some X4

I don't have any option on buying on newegg or other webshops so these are the cards in my price range, and these are the only ones i can get in my country.

I don't know much about these cards so if you can help me out pick something that'll work for me

Is there any tangible difference between hooking it up to PCI-E x1 or x4?

Oh well, ANY help is much appreciated
Greets,
Tom.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

You just want SATA ports? A $20 card will do that. Those cards look like RAID controllers to me.

 

[Lightning983]

Well i found a 15$ eSATA card from Innovision, but i'm willing on spending a bit more just for the option of running RAID0 or RAID1 on the card in the future, and since its PCI-E its pretty future proof.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

What site are you looking at anyway? If you want to do RAID, RAID5 might be a better choice anyway.

 

[Keitero]

Oh god. It "starts" with "well I might want to do RAID 1" and ends with "why did I just spend 1k on this RAID 5E setup?!". (Happened to me).

Back to the issue at hand, if it's strictly for storage, you can do either software RAID1/5 with FreeNAS or any flavor of Windows Server OS or go with a nice sudo hardware/software RAID card from LSI or Adaptec. I tend to stay away from Promise since I've had many issues with them in the past and present with either drivers, issues with performance, or issues with compatibility (mainly Intel boards). You can spend anywhere from $0 (which is very nice) to like I said $1k+ (which newegg.com <3's me for).

 

[Lightning983]

I know what you're saying... i wasn't looking at any of the "serious" equipment... just something not dirt cheap, but still afordable... i started off at 20$ and ended up at 200

I'm not looking for RAID5 or RAID6 controllers, because i'm planning on a storage server in about 6 months and then i'll get some "serious" equipment

Just from the cards i listed in the 1st post which would be best? I'm kind of leaning to the Adaptec or LSI, so which one one be a better choice?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Keitero
Oh god. It "starts" with "well I might want to do RAID 1" and ends with "why did I just spend 1k on this RAID 5E setup?!". (Happened to me).

Back to the issue at hand, if it's strictly for storage, you can do either software RAID1/5 with FreeNAS or any flavor of Windows Server OS or go with a nice sudo hardware/software RAID card from LSI or Adaptec. I tend to stay away from Promise since I've had many issues with them in the past and present with either drivers, issues with performance, or issues with compatibility (mainly Intel boards). You can spend anywhere from $0 (which is very nice) to like I said $1k+ (which newegg.com <3's me for).

Same here. Now I'm wondering why the Areca 1220 is in my home server box instead of my gaming rig. But I can't find 8 port non-RAID SATA controllers.