Needing a Sata-Controller 4 Port Expansion Card

[Cartaz]

Good Evening Everyone!

I'm new to the forum and I need your help. I have a M5A99X Evo R2.0 Motherboard from ASUS and need a SATA-Controller Expansion Card with 4 ports, which is compatible with UEFI and doesn't increase the boot time. That's very important. I don't need any RAID functionality, just 4 intern SATA II/III Ports for HDD's.

I really appreciate your help.

 

EDIT: If i posted it in the wrong subforum, I apologize. I'm from germany, so my english is not the best.

[alpenwasser]

@Cartaz

Not really sure if such a card exists that does not increase

boot time, even the fastest one. As far as I'm aware all these

cards will need to do their own checkup thingie, which takes

a few seconds usually (at least the ones I've seen).

What's your budget? Does it need to be PCI or PCI Express?

[wpirobotbuilder]

Good Evening Everyone!

I'm new to the forum and I need your help. I have a M5A99X Evo R2.0 Motherboard from ASUS and need a SATA-Controller Expansion Card with 4 ports, which is compatible with UEFI and doesn't increase the boot time. That's very important. I don't need any RAID functionality, just 4 intern SATA II/III Ports for HDD's.

I really appreciate your help.

 

EDIT: If i posted it in the wrong subforum, I apologize. I'm from germany, so my english is not the best.

I don't think you can find one which doesn't increase boot time. The controller has to initialize.

 

The LSI 9211-4i is one of the cheapest and simplest, and is very well regarded.

[alpenwasser]

I don't think you can find one which doesn't increase boot time. The controller has to initialize.

 

The LSI 9211-4i is one of the cheapest and simplest, and is very well regarded.

+1 for the 9211-4i. If you check on eBay, it might also be worth looking

at the 9211-8i (same controller, more or less, just with eight ports).

For some reason, I have found the 8-port version to be available for

better prices on eBay, at least those offers that ship to my location

(probably supply and demand, who knows).

The 8i can be had for ~100 USD. If you can find the 4i for a better price,

then obviously go for that since you only need four ports.

[Ahnzh]

if you don't mind some tinkering, buy a IBM ServeRAID M1015 on ebay for 90$ or so. It's essentially an LSI Card with running IBM's firmware on it. Crossflash it by following this GUIDE and you will get a great card for under 100$

[alpenwasser]

if you don't mind some tinkering, buy a IBM ServeRAID M1015 on ebay for 90$ or so. It's essentially an LSI Card with running IBM's firmware on it. Crossflash it by following this GUIDE and you will get a great card for under 100$

Caveat: Can be a rather troublesome route, as @Shaqalac discovered recently.

But yes, can be a very cost-effective solution.

[Shaqalac]

if you don't mind some tinkering, buy a IBM ServeRAID M1015 on ebay for 90$ or so. It's essentially an LSI Card with running IBM's firmware on it. Crossflash it by following this GUIDE and you will get a great card for under 100$

You make it sound so easy.

If you are confused check my answer to the quote below.

 

Caveat: Can be a rather troublesome route, as @Shaqalac discovered recently.

But yes, can be a very cost-effective solution.

It was indeed troublesome but as I've mentioned in aw's guide and my build log I'm sure my case is very rare. The documentation on my problem/situation was very little and almost non-existent, luckily there are some good active fora out there, including LTT and working together with aw he came up with the solution.

My intentions are not to scare you away from the solution @ suggested but I want to make sure that you know that I can be a process that could demand some trial and error.

 

In short terms, if you like to work with hardware and software and if you want to expand your knowledge, even though it can be a completely troubleless process, go for the IBM ServeRAID M1015 and flash it to IT-mode. If you run into any issues/problems I'm pretty sure I've been there in one way or another.

[Ahnzh]

You make it sound so easy.

If you are confused check my answer to the quote below.

 

It was indeed troublesome but as I've mentioned in aw's guide and my build log I'm sure my case is very rare. The documentation on my problem/situation was very little and almost non-existent, luckily there are some good active fora out there, including LTT and working together with aw he came up with the solution.

My intentions are not to scare you away from the solution @ suggested but I want to make sure that you know that I can be a process that could demand some trial and error.

 

In short terms, if you like to work with hardware and software and if you want to expand your knowledge, even though it can be a completely troubleless process, go for the IBM ServeRAID M1015 and flash it to IT-mode. If you run into any issues/problems I'm pretty sure I've been there in one way or another.

 

I flashed 3 of those already and I didn't run into major problems. I think you are a rare case. But even then it makes you an insider that knows far more about it than me. Even if he runs into problems he's got somebody that really got into it and as a community we will solve this problem together.

[Cartaz]

Thank you for all your advice. I'm going to buy the 9211-4i from LSI, you helped me a lot, the minor increase of Boot time doesn't matter when theres no SATA controller which are capable of fast Boot vor something like this. And again thanks for your help