Which mobo with most Sata ports? Or get a PCIE card?

[WildViper]

Hi All,

I am looking for a mobo with the most SATA ports...so far I can see 6 as most (in my budget). Ideally I would like to have 8 total.

I want to stay within a budget of $125.

The alternative for me is to buy the 6 SATA board and then buy a PCI E card to enable at least 2 more SATA. But my experience with PCIE Sata cards has not been positive. Anyone have a good rec for the card instead?

FYI: AMD AM3+ based board

 

[smakme7757]

The MSI Z77A-GD65 has 8 ports, 4x SATAIII and 4x SATA II. I have that in one of my servers at home. I added a cheap SATA III PCi-E card for an extra two sata ports for a total of 10.

Not sure how much it costs where you live, but here in Norway it's a pretty decently priced board, i.e not that expensive.

 

[WildViper]

Thanx...checking that MSI it appears it is Intel.

 

[piasabird]

I wonder if there are some cheap SATA 3.0 add-on Cards.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I wonder if there are some cheap SATA 3.0 add-on Cards.

Any add-in card for SATA-III, as for earlier disk standards, will be cheaper without its own microprocessor and more expensive with it. But I don't think you'd need such a (RAID) beast if you were only adding single drives in AHCI mode.

Used to be you could get good controllers from Promise Tech, Adaptec, 3Ware or now LSI. Most of the ones I see at the Egg these days are from makers like SYBA, Koutech etc. That may not be the drawback for such an item: those companies usually pick up the ball for the "simpler, cheaper" units previously with name-brand manufacture.

Even so. If you want 8 SATA-III ports for SSD's, then you need 8 SATA-III ports. If we're talking about HDDs, you won't suffer much if you hook them up to SATA-II ports. It shouldn't matter for sheer sustained throughput. Now that I think of it, my 2-year-old mobo came with both, but that was "then." Do the newer boards simply come with all SATA-III ports?

 

[WildViper]

To clarify:

I am not trying to run RAID. It is mainly for large 3TB/4TB drives plus a couple of SSD drives.

I have my Pictures on 1 drive / Videos on another / Music on another / Personal Data on yet another and so on.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If you don't mind going AMD, Gigabyte has an FM2+ board with 8 SATA3 ports.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4716#sp

 

[zir_blazer]

If you don't mind going AMD, Gigabyte has an FM2+ board with 8 SATA3 ports.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4716#sp

He said AM3+, doubt that one will do.


I would consider a RAID Controller, assuming it fits the budget. I suppose that you can use them as if they were bigger SATA Controllers without being forced to actually have to use RAID. Something like this could work, through I don't know of actual good models.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

He said AM3+, doubt that one will do.

My bad. I read it as the OP needed a cheapest possible new board with 8+ SATA3 ports.

You can't get an AM3+ board with more then 6 native SATA3 ports. The SB950 does not support more. To get more then 6, you have to use a 3rd party controller. Though of course that can be integrated on the board.

What to recommend depends entirely on what CPU the OP uses. I wouldn't go spending big on a 990FX board for an old Phenom/Athlon...

 

[cbn]

Hi All,

I am looking for a mobo with the most SATA ports...so far I can see 6 as most (in my budget). Ideally I would like to have 8 total.

I want to stay within a budget of $125.

The alternative for me is to buy the 6 SATA board and then buy a PCI E card to enable at least 2 more SATA. But my experience with PCIE Sata cards has not been positive. Anyone have a good rec for the card instead?

FYI: AMD AM3+ based board

These two AM3+ boards have six SATA 3 Gbps and two SATA 6 Gbps (for a total of 8 SATA ports):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130722 ($57.99 Free shipping)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157366 ($69.99 plus $7.56 shipping)