MOBO Short on SATA connections? Try this
#1
When building my unRaid box for my HTPC,.the mobo I used (one I had laying around) only had 4 sata connections.
I had 5 HDDs installed, 4 were plugged in and running unRaid perfectly,..the 5th drive was installed but unplaugged.
I also had another drive laying on a table until I could figure out what I was going to do.

I ordered this PCI to SATA / IDE (2 SATA / 2 PATA) Combo RAID Controller Card - VT6421A (Manufacturer Part # SY-VIA-150R).

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At less than 10 bucks, it was worth a try.
It came yesterday and I installed it last night.
The box contained the card and a sata cable, which was really cool, since I've seen some local shops charging 5 bucks for the cable alone.

I started up unRaid and it perfectly saw the 5th drive.
Once it was formatted, I ran some tests and I can't tell any obvious differences between the 5th drive and any of the other drives.
Speed was great, copying to, and reading from,...

Can't wait to install the 6th drive and plug that in too.

I'll be ordering another one of these cards, so I can install the unRaid cache drive.
Problem is,..that will give me another free SATA connection,...you know what that means rightHuh??
I'll have to buy the next step up of unRaid server. I currently have a 6 disk license.

Hope this helps someone unsure about PCI-SATA cards. It certainly helped me!

Oh,..one more note,..the picture of the device only shows the sata connections livign on the card itself.
I was happy to find the card I received also had an external sata port. A nice bonus for me!!!
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#2
Yes one PCI slot is ok..... when you start to use more of them it's not good because they share bandwith.
Pci express is the way to go.
why not buy some 2tb hd's?
One for your Parity.....

or even 1TB
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#3
(2012-05-23, 14:18)Beer40oz Wrote: Yes one PCI slot is ok..... when you start to use more of them it's not good because they share bandwith.
Pci express is the way to go.
why not buy some 2tb hd's?
One for your Parity.....

or even 1TB

My problem was that this mobo only had AGB slot, and PCI slots,...no PCI Express.
So far, I'm very happy with speed and redundancy.

I have a 2TB drive and a 1TB drive, but was unsure of their purpose at this time. May need on another build.
But you're right,..So far my unRaid drives are a mis-mash of drives that were laying around 1-500TB and 4-250GB.
I also have a 125GB that was going to be the 6th drive.

Yeah, I know, this only give me ~1TB on the unRaid share drive,...but for now,...it's all I need.
I'm building my movie library each week though.

Eventually, my unRaid can go from its current 1TB capacity, all the way up to 10TB (that's using 2TB drives)
The stable version of unRaid I'm using only supports 2TB for now.
and I'm not sure about my 2003 mobo, if it supports 3TB drives.

If it can support 3TB and they stabalize and release the unRaid 3TB support, then I can eventually get my unRaid up to 15TB. Not too shabby!


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#4
One drive on PCI is fine.

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MOBO Short on SATA connections? Try this0