Cheapest way to add 6-8 SATA ports to a system?

Gerr · April 20, 2016

I am building a home server that will have 12 total SATA devices on it with many of those being 3-4TB HDD's. I had bought a Dell PERC 6/IR card, only to find out that it maces out at 2TB per drive. There are a ton of 2-4 port Sata cards, but I need 6 extra ports and don't have the slots to put in more than a single card to do this. I was wondering if the option I have listed below would be the best/cheapest route to go or if someone could suggest something else...

http://www.amazon.com/SAS9200-8E-8PORT-Ext-Sata-Pcie/dp/B002QJZLCA

*I know this is external SAS, but there are external mini-SAS to internal SATA cables that I can simply reroute back into the case. And from the reviews, it looks like it will support 4TB+ HDD's. Downside is cables are expensive.

I would prefer a simple 8-port SATA RAID and/or HBA card and would like it kept under $100. Any suggestions?

beach_boy98 · April 20, 2016

For this use I would have a look at the dell h200. With some firmware upgrades you can get drives add quite cheaply. The https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/ guys are great at this. I would go ask them.

Gerr · April 20, 2016

Also, while eBay does list 9211-8i cards for under $100, they are all from China and not sure if I should trust those.

Curufinwe_wins · April 20, 2016

Not that you will want to spend so much on one, but there is a fairly good (for NAS purposes) motherboard that comes standard with 12 sata ports.

Asrock C2550D4I (the C2750 is an octocore, but otherwise identical)

Costs about 300 dollars new.

Gerr · April 20, 2016

Since my motherboard is only a MSI Z97 PC Mate, I was thinking I could find another mobo with 8 ports and just use my add-on 4-port card for a total of 12 ports. Since I already have 32GB of non-ECC memory, was thinking of the ASRock C226 WS mobo which is just under $200. This is a more stable and better mobo than I am currently using, and if I wanted to upgrade to ECC memory at a later time, I could. Plus it has an esata port, which helps with backup connectivity.