Need Help Finding a SATA expansion card

[Gronnie]

So after picking up two more of the Seagate 4TB HDD online yesterday, my motherboard will now officially be out of SATA ports. Planning for the future, I started looking at expansion cards, but I have no idea what to choose. Usually I am good at picking out hardware, but I have never had to buy one of these before.

I have no need for a RAID controller, as I use FlexRaid. I just need the SATA ports. Any suggestions?

I prefer to buy from Amazon (1st pref, and I have Prime) and Newegg (2nd pref, and I have shoprunner), but am also open to other sources.

 

This computer is on 24/7 serving up media to all the other PC in the house, to download TV shows to, and I also use it do do all my development on (I am a senior in college, CS major). No gaming on this rig.

Specs of system it will go in:
Corsair 500R
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
Intel i7 3770k
Corsair H100i
Samsung 830 256GB SSD
16 GB DDR3 1600 Ram
Intel PCI-e NIC
6x4TB Seagate HDD
2x AMD 6670 GPU running 4 monitors (Dell U3011, 2x Dell 2007FP, Samsung 220WM)
LG BD drive
Corsair HX750 PSU
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Slots I have available on motherboard:

1x PCI-e x1
2x PCI

Thanks in advance, this forum is awesome!

Will something like this be reliable, or do I need to spend (a lot) more money? http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Star-SATA6-2-Port-SATA-III-6Gb-s-PCI-Express-x1-Controller-Card-Retail-Box-/221175567835?pt=US_Computer_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item337f1755db

[DarrenP]

I would spend a good amount of money (200-500) on a  nice LSI RAID card, and throw all the HDD's into a nice RAID 10. Yes you'll lose a little storage, but you'll gain redundancy. I can guess you have a lot of something and need to keep a hold of it. However if you feel like using Flex RAID more than that's okay too. 

 

However i would need more of less a better understanding if how many more SATA Ports you'd need?

[Gronnie]

I am just using this to hold all my media. Blu Ray and DVD rips, and TV show downloads. Wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost some or all of it, although it obviously wouldn't be ideal (would take a ton of time to rerip it all).

 

I have started to slow down a bit, as I haven't even watched quite a bit of the content I have yet, so I anticipate that the storage I have should be sufficient for a while. Once I run out, buying another couple 4TB drives should last me a LONG time, so 8 drives tops, plus the SSD and OD. That leaves me 2 SATA ports short if I stick with the ones on the motherboard and FlexRaid.

[wpirobotbuilder]

I'd recommend the LSI 9211 series of cards. I'd recommend the 4i if you don't think you'll need much more storage space, but they do offer an 8-drive model too.

 

You'll have to flash it to IT mode if you want to run it with FlexRAID.

 

Otherwise, you can just pick up any old HBA to use for ports.

[skogsvilden]

There can be only one! The IBM ServerRaid M1015 HBA (LSI SAS9220-8i) available cheaply all over and reflashable to suit all possible needs.