Recommend a PCI SATA controller card for WHS?

[Severian]

My WHS box is old school:

P4 2.8Ghz
2GB PC3200 DDR
Gigabyte 8IK 1100 S478 mobo

I have added as many drives to this machine as it is natively capable of (4 IDE and 2 SATA) and use it mostly for streaming 1080p to my HTPC's, and backing up the family computers.

I need some recommendations on inexpensive PCI to SATA controller cards that work with WHS. I'm not looking for RAID, just JOBD if anything. No PCIe slots means I'm limited to PCI cards. I'll probably add at least two cards to this box so they should play nice together.

Although I have six drives currently totalling a bit less than 1 terabyte of pooled storage, I'm going to start adding 1.5 and 2 TB drives in the near future.

thanks for any input!

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have two Syba cards with the SI3114 chipset, cost me about $20 ea, although Newegg now wants around $30 ea for them. PCI 4-port SATA controller.

Has flashable BIOS, supports RAID (0/1/5), or flashable to IDE mode. Was going to flash to IDE mode before installing into my WHS.

I haven't actually tested them with WHS though, although they are pretty common and fairly highly compatible controller cards. I know that they are popular with Linux software RAID setups.

 

[Severian]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-020-_-Product

there's a review on that page that states it works with Server 2003, so I can't imagine it wouldn't work with WHS.

why flash to IDE mode? is this required to use all four ports independently?

 

[pjkenned]

That machine must cost a relative fortune to keep 1TB running. Six drives for 1TB of space + a P4!

That Syba card will probably work.

 

[Severian]

it's a bit of a Frankenstein, admittedly, but I expect I will retire the older drives as their spots become redundant. I really just slapped this machine together from what I had laying around. I was thinking of upgrading the platform, but the general consensus was that it was pointless for this version of WHS...