Recommended 4 port SATA controller?

[Citezein]

Can anyone recommend a 4-port SATA controlled that is compatible with WHS 2011? I don't need RAID but would like something reliable and reasonably priced. I have a PCIe x4 slot that would be used.

[mrossco]

Tough to find a trustwothy product without RAID support. I'd go with either the Adaptec 1430 SA or the HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4. Both are good quality manufacturers that actually put effort into building their drivers rather than forward along reference drivers from the chipset maker. They also have a history of supporting their cards beyond most.

[jmwills]

The card has been recommended by the BYOB crew. Not fancy but it works.

[ikon]

Can anyone recommend a 4-port SATA controlled that is compatible with WHS 2011? I don't need RAID but would like something reliable and reasonably priced. I have a PCI x4 slot that would be used.

PCI x4 ?? Do you mean a PCIe x4 perhaps?

 

Also, you don't say if you want all the ports external, all internal, or a mix.

Edited March 27, 2011 by ikon

[Citezein]

PCI x4 ?? Do you mean a PCIe x4 perhaps?

 

Also, you don't say if you want all the ports external, all internal, or a mix.

 

Sorry, PCIe x4, yes. I'm looking for internal ports as I'll likely use a USB 3.0 drive for external backup. I'm also looking for a controller that can handle > 2TB drives and 4K advanced format drives.

[Citezein]

Tough to find a trustwothy product without RAID support. I'd go with either the Adaptec 1430 SA or the HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4. Both are good quality manufacturers that actually put effort into building their drivers rather than forward along reference drivers from the chipset maker. They also have a history of supporting their cards beyond most.

 

The Adaptec controller doesn't seem to work well with x64 Windows according to the comments at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103105&cm_re=adaptec_sata-_-16-103-105-_-Product

 

That RocketRAID controller looks like it might be the perfect fit. I'd feel better about it if there were more than two reviews on NewEgg though. Is anyone else using it?

 

Also, does anyone have experience with LSI controllers? There's one for $150, which is a bit expensive, but I'd pay up to that for a quality product. This one looked interesting: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118146

[ikon]

The Adaptec controller doesn't seem to work well with x64 Windows according to the comments at http://www.newegg.co...3-105-_-Product

 

That RocketRAID controller looks like it might be the perfect fit. I'd feel better about it if there were more than two reviews on NewEgg though. Is anyone else using it?

 

Also, does anyone have experience with LSI controllers? There's one for $150, which is a bit expensive, but I'd pay up to that for a quality product. This one looked interesting: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16816118146

That card is for SAS drives; do you have SAS drives?

[timekills]

That card is for SAS drives; do you have SAS drives?

 

You can attach SATA drives to a SAS backplane. Just not the reverse.

 

How come no one ever discusses port multipliers, especially as the OP said RAID is not desired? Why spend money on a RAID card to not use RAID instead of just a port multiplier? Yes, you have to share the speed over all the ports but at 6Gb/s SATA speeds you can add quite a few spindle drives before you approach maxing out the limit. Not to mention since it isn't RAID, you're likely not accessing more than a couple drives simultaneously anyway.

 

We're talking $25 vs $150+ here.

Edited March 27, 2011 by timekills

[ikon]

You can attach SATA drives to a SAS backplane.

Good to know. Never tried to do that; all our SAS systems at work have SAS drives in them, mostly SANs.

 

I'm using a port multiplier on my WHS; Silicon Image 1x card to 2 eSATA ports, one to 4-bay Mediasonic Pro box and other to Thermaltake SATA dock.

Edited March 27, 2011 by ikon

[Citezein]

You can attach SATA drives to a SAS backplane. Just not the reverse.

 

How come no one ever discusses port multipliers, especially as the OP said RAID is not desired? Why spend money on a RAID card to not use RAID instead of just a port multiplier? Yes, you have to share the speed over all the ports but at 6Gb/s SATA speeds you can add quite a few spindle drives before you approach maxing out the limit. Not to mention since it isn't RAID, you're likely not accessing more than a couple drives simultaneously anyway.

 

We're talking $25 vs $150+ here.

 

Yes, you can attach SATA drives to that card, I checked the manufacturer's page at: http://www.lsi.com/channel/products/hba/sas_sata_hbas/internal/lsisas3041er/index.html

 

The reason I'm not looking for a port multiplier is that I'm going to use the new VT-d features of my motherboard to assign this controller to an ESXi VM of WHS 2011. That allows me to virtualize WHS, while letting it have direct, unrestricted access to a set of hard drives. The SATA ports on my motherboard will be used for other VMs and the ESXi install itself. You can read about my hardware at: http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1670-new-vail-maybe-build/

 

I think that I'm going to go with either the RocketRAID card, or perhaps the 6 Gbps LSI card. It seems that if I'm going to pay $150, I might as well pay $170 and future-proof myself a bit.