decent inexpensive sata controller

[vshah]

looking for a good, inexpensive way to add 4-6 sata ports to my server. needs to be 1x pci-e or PCI. doesn't need to have any specific raid, i'm just connecting a bunch of disks. any recs?

 

[Elixer]

Do you want support for windows or linux or both ?

 

[Soulkeeper]

there are many cheap pcie 1x options with 2 ports
asmedia (asus subsidiary) and marvell make the chips for these
almost all of these are supported well in windows and linux and cost about $20
like this
syba, koutech, and others make them too

if you want a single card 4 port pcie 4x would be a good option

you can get lower prices if you are willing to forgo sata III support

I dunno if any of these fit the bill for you.
only a single 1x pcie slot available ?

 

[tweakboy]

IMO they are all crapola and much slower then if it was on your motherboard. Better to upgrade to a fancy MOBO and do what you wanna do, or else you will have limitations. gl
"PCIe 4x ,, slow, better if it was built on mobo already.

 

[vshah]

ended up ordering this before anyone responded. reviewers say it works fine on win7 x64 using built in drivers.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00

I don't really care about speed so I stuck with sata2/pci - never more than one or two clients accessing this data at any time.

considered a mobo upgrade but since my server is on a lga775 mobo, that would have meant ram + cpu + mobo.