Elliot B. Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I have ran out of SATA II/III ports on my motherboard but I have a spare PCI-E slot. I am looking to add 2x internal SATA II/III ports. I searched Amazon for "PCI SATA card" but there are simply too many options! I've noticed most mention "SIL3114" and "32-bit 33/66Mhz host interface". From what I can gather, these mean they're SATA (1.5 Gbit/s/150 MB/s) and not SATA II (3 Gbit/s/300 MB/s) or SATA III (6 Gbit/s/600 MB/s) - but I could be wrong. Also, I know about the ASUS U3S6 card but that's ?30 and I was hoping to get a card for around ?10-?20 if possible since I'll only be using it to power a standard optical drive and possibly a hard drive (for music storage) in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_K Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 33/66MHz is useless for you, that's PCI not PCI express. Elliot B. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambroos Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Syba-Port-SATA-6Gbps-PCI-Express/dp/B005B0A6ZS Those are OK. There's a four-port version of it too. Don't expect those things to be bootable, but they're fine for storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot B. Posted July 20, 2014 Author Share Posted July 20, 2014 So far, my options seem to be: Syba SY-PEX400392x SATA III (6 Gbit/s)?17.65 (Amazon UK) Lycom PE-1152x SATA III (6 Gbit/s)?24.28 (Lambdatek) Lycom PE-115H2x SATA III (6 Gbit/s), hardware RAID?24.51 (Scan) Lycom PE-115M2x SATA III (6 Gbit/s), hardware RAID1x mSATA external port?24.51 (Scan) Asus U3S62x SATA III (6 Gbit/s)2x USB 3.0 external ports?29.44 (Amazon UK) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambroos Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Just pick what you like best I guess. I think there's little difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted July 21, 2014 Moderator Share Posted July 21, 2014 I always used Syba for my RAID cards. Never had an issue. But, whatever you want, as Ambroos said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rail Grinder Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 What are you planning on doing? Do you actually plan to run drives in RAID or just need the extra ports to connect individual drives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rail Grinder Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 I looked through all the items you listed and I would advised against those. Those are based on the Marvell 91xx chipsets and although they will work just fine, you won't get the best throughput from then since it's limited to only 1x PCIe lane. The Marvell 92xx chipsets (which I'm using with my SSDs) doesn't have that bottleneck since it uses a 2x PCIe lane.Depending on your needs go with either of these: SY-PEX40057 - Marvell 9230 (88SE9230) chipset - 4-port RAID (http://sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1371) SY-PEX40062 - Marvell 9235 (88SE9235) chipset - 4-port non-RAID (http://sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1373) I believe SYBA also goes under the name IOCREST which might be easier to come across in the EU. If you go with the two I suggested and if it's possible on your motherboard, remember to change your bios settings to run the PCIe slot faster than 1x. Usually you can configure it to either 16x, 8x or maybe even 4x. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot B. Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 I looked through all the items you listed and I would advised against those. Those are based on the Marvell 91xx chipsets and although they will work just fine, you won't get the best throughput from then since it's limited to only 1x PCIe lane. The Marvell 92xx chipsets (which I'm using with my SSDs) doesn't have that bottleneck since it uses a 2x PCIe lane. Depending on your needs go with either of these: SY-PEX40057 - Marvell 9230 (88SE9230) chipset - 4-port RAID (http://sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1371) SY-PEX40062 - Marvell 9235 (88SE9235) chipset - 4-port non-RAID (http://sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1373) I believe SYBA also goes under the name IOCREST which might be easier to come across in the EU. If you go with the two I suggested and if it's possible on your motherboard, remember to change your bios settings to run the PCIe slot faster than 1x. Usually you can configure it to either 16x, 8x or maybe even 4x. SI-PEX40057 (RAID) - ?29.77 from Amazon UK. SI-PEX40062 (no-RAID) - ?30.52 from Amazon UK. Bought the SI-PEX40057 (y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fahim S. MVC Posted July 21, 2014 MVC Share Posted July 21, 2014 SI-PEX40057 (RAID) - ?29.77 from Amazon UK. SI-PEX40062 (no-RAID) - ?30.52 from Amazon UK. Bought the SI-PEX40057 (y) Careful installing the Marvel HyperDuo software. It is awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot B. Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Careful installing the Marvel HyperDuo software. It is awful. Do I need if it I'm just plugging one standard optical drive into it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fahim S. MVC Posted July 21, 2014 MVC Share Posted July 21, 2014 Do I need if it I'm just plugging one standard optical drive into it?You don't need it at all unless you are using the RAID features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliot B. Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 You don't need it at all unless you are using the RAID features. I won't be. That's good, then :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rail Grinder Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Careful installing the Marvel HyperDuo software. It is awful. Never needed to use it and I don't think I ever will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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