expansion card compatibility

[d00m1ord]

so I am planning to upgrade to a 3700x with a msi meg ace motherboard however it only has 4 sata ports on the board and I am currently using 4 so would have no spares but I found a pcie expansion card that gives extra sata ports however I am unsure if it would work because I don't know how pcie lanes work. can anyone advise?

[Corrupt_Liberty]

Short answer...Yes it'll work just fine.  

 

Long answer...What card do you plan on purchasing?  What cards do you already have populated?  Most of the 4x Sata cards I see are only PCIE 1x.  You have three 1x slots on your MB and 3 16x slots.  The 16x slots will also work with 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x. 

[mariushm]

If it has a pci-e connector and its size is equal or smaller than the slots your motherboard has, the card will work.

 

Also, your board has 6 SATA ports, but 2 are in the 2nd and 3rd M.2 connectors, where you can use either NVME (pci-e) or SATA SSDs. If I read the manual correctly, using SATA M.2 SSDs in the M.2 connectors will not disable your four regular SATA connectors.

You could also buy adapters to just get extra SATA ports, here's example:

1. basic version (just M.2 -> SATA) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-NGFF-SATA-to-7Pin-SATA-M2-to-SATA-Converter-Card-Adapter-2242-2260-2280/202663326130

2. version with power supply (so you can power SATA SSD from M.2 connector instead of power supply, for example if you want to use this in a laptop or a pc with custom power supply that has no SATA power connectors) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-ssd-to-SATA-III-SSD-7-Pin-m-2-Power-Adapter-Converter-Board-Card-PCB-4pin/123790705528

 

If you need more than 2 sata ports or you don't want to mess with those adapters, I'd suggest buying a HBA card with SAS connectors... they're cheap and allow you to connect up to 8 SATA devices to them. 

 

examples:

1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PERC-H200-8Port-6Gb-s-Adapter-SAS-SATA-Controller-Card-LSI-9211-8I/142236184986

2. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PERC-H200-Adapter-8Port-6Gb-s-SAS-SATA-Controller-Card-LSI-9211-8I-Original/283536993052

 

or directly from a store :

55$ (63$ with 2 breakout cables) Refurbished: LSI 9210-8i 8-port 6Gb/s SAS-2 ZFS JBOD IT-Mode HBA - UNIXPlus.com

 

To use them with SATA drives, you just need 2 x SFF-8087 to 4 x SATA breakout cables, which cost less than 10$ each on eBay.

 

 

[d00m1ord]

1 hour ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

Short answer...Yes it'll work just fine.  

 

Long answer...What card do you plan on purchasing?  What cards do you already have populated?  Most of the 4x Sata cards I see are only PCIE 1x.  You have three 1x slots on your MB and 3 16x slots.  The 16x slots will also work with 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x. 

hadn't chosen a specific card just googled "pcie sata card" and had a look on amazon the only slot that I will already have occupied is 1 16x slot for my gpu 

[Corrupt_Liberty]

1 minute ago, d00m1ord said:

hadn't chosen a specific card just googled "pcie sata card" and had a look on amazon the only slot that I will already have occupied is 1 16x slot for my gpu 

Then you're fine.  Any card you choose will work as long as it has drivers for your OS.  I doubt Windows 10 will even need drivers.

[d00m1ord]

1 hour ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

Then you're fine.  Any card you choose will work as long as it has drivers for your OS.  I doubt Windows 10 will even need drivers.

ok thanks for the help looks like I may go ryzen then

[mariushm]

See the edited post above, I made some suggestions.

Short story is you can indeed plug a pci-e x1 or pci-e x4 or pci-e x8 adapter card into a pci-e x16 slot without any worries. It will work.

You can also insert a pci-e x1 card in any slot and it will work.

 

[d00m1ord]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

See the edited post above, I made some suggestions.

Short story is you can indeed plug a pci-e x1 or pci-e x4 or pci-e x8 adapter card into a pci-e x16 slot without any worries. It will work.

You can also insert a pci-e x1 card in any slot and it will work.

 

I was considering this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07TD57RGZ/ref=twister_B07YNDQHK2?_encoding=UTF8&th=1

[mariushm]

I wouldn't waste my money on no-name Chinese cards. IF you look around, the same card is sold under lots of brands, so if it fails chances are you're not gonna get any warranty.

Yeah, they use well known controller chips, but you can't know how well the components on the board were chosen and good the trace layout to keep signal quality good is.

 

Those HBA cards are brand name, excess stock or cards pulled out from dedicated servers that are removed from service, they're much higher quality and have higher performance than these cheap pci-e x1 cards

 

If you do insist on buying from Amazon UK and you want "new", then I'd suggest this : Syba SI-PEX40064 SATA III 4 Port PCI-e x1 Controller Card with Low Profile Brackets

At least the manufacturer has a working website, where you can easily find drivers and more details: https://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=156&search=SI-PEX40064