Confused on which SATA data 8 ports cards to buy

philb2

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I need an 8-port SATA card that can go into a x4 or x16 card slot and provide "serious" performance, even if multiple drives are active at the same time. I want a card that can boot up a drive to start the system but I'm out of my league to understand the technical fine points here, including Marvell or ASMedia chips. RAID is not needed. Windows support is critical, Linux would be a nice to have. I need to get this new card as a result of upgrades to my motherboard and my system case.

I need help to understand what is missing in vendor specs that conceals flaws. I've done some reading on the web, but there are the usual contradictory statements and claims about performance, and I can't sort all that out. I've also done a bunch of product searches on Amazon and other stores, and I'm more confused now than when I started. :banghead:

My upgraded rig has an ASUS X670 Strix-EA, which has only 4 SATA ports. (It also has 4 slots for 4 NVMe drives, which is nice for the future.) My old motherboard had 8 SATA ports. From my old rig I also have this port PCIE SATA card, but all ports will be used on both the motherboard and the PCIE card for just to handle my existing ODD, 3.5" HDDs and SSDs. I'm uncomfortable with having no free SATA ports and I also want to add 2 HDDs at a minimum because my new case has room for these HDDs plus 5 more SSDs.

There are no free slots on my new motherboard, so I can't just get another Syba card. I don't expect to get the cheapest card out there for obvious reasons.
 
I use a LSI SAS 9211-8i card in my system, been completely problem free since I got it quite a few years ago. It can take 8 SATA devices, but you need the cables to breakout the 2 SAS ports to 8 SATA ports.
 
You want one of the various LSI based SAS/SATA cards. They are readily available used at reasonable prices.

Don't know about booting, but why would you even need that?
 
I use this Fujitsu branded LSI card set to IT mode and it works great, not sure about booting from it, I just boot from an SSD attached to my mobo's SATA ports.
you want to get an LSI card (if you go that route) that is already in IT mode or can be flashed to IT mode. Easier to just buy one that is already in IT mode.
IT mode makes each drive it's own volume automatically so windows or linux will see individual drives. If it's not in IT mode, then you have to create volumes in the cards BIOS which is more work and you can't attach drives with data already on them as the drive will be deleted when the volume is created. With IT mode, you can attach drives with data on them and windows or linux will see them with no issues.
I paid $35 for this card and $10 or so for the pair of break out cables.

IMG_1195.JPEG


8 drives on the card and the rest on the mobo,

Plex_Drive_Space - 12-2022.jpg


Also, they make these cards called SAS Expanders which allows you to add even more drives using the one LSI based controller.
You plug the 2 cables from the LSI card to the Expander and then breakout cables will attach to the Expander. also, the SAS Expander only gets power from the PCIe slot, no data goes through the slot.
SAS Expander, https://www.ebay.com/itm/394046667073
Controller with cables, https://www.ebay.com/itm/155042469639
1675165805271.png
 
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You want one of the various LSI based SAS/SATA cards. They are readily available used at reasonable prices.

Don't know about booting, but why would you even need that?
Experiments if I install as OS on one of my SSD drives.
 
I use this Fujitsu branded LSI card set to IT mode and it works great, not sure about booting from it, I just boot from an SSD attached to my mobo's SATA ports.
you want to get an LSI card (if you go that route) that is already in IT mode or can be flashed to IT mode. Easier to just buy one that is already in IT mode.
IT mode makes each drive it's own volume automatically so windows or linux will see individual drives. If it's not in IT mode, then you have to create volumes in the cards BIOS which is more work and you can't attach drives with data already on them as the drive will be deleted when the volume is created. With IT mode, you can attach drives with data on them and windows or linux will see them with no issues.
I paid $35 for this card and $10 or so for the pair of break out cables.

View attachment 545508

8 drives on the card and the rest on the mobo,

View attachment 545509

Also, they make these cards called SAS Expanders which allows you to add even more drives using the one LSI based controller.
You plug the 2 cables from the LSI card to the Expander and then breakout cables will attach to the Expander. also, the SAS Expander only gets power from the PCIe slot, no data goes through the slot.
SAS Expander, https://www.ebay.com/itm/394046667073
Controller with cables, https://www.ebay.com/itm/155042469639
View attachment 545514
That sounds like a great solution, but if I understand your post, I need 2 free slots. With my new motherboard, I have only 3 total slots. 1 slot for the GPU card, and 1 slot for the USB 3 19-pin header card. That leaves me with the 1 free slot for the SATA ports card.

Too bad, but it is what it is.
 
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That sounds like a great solution, but if I understand your post, I need 2 free slots. With my new motherboard, I have only 3 total slots. 1 slot for the GPU card, and 1 slot for the USB 3 19-pin header card. That leaves me with the 1 free slot for the SATA ports card.

Too bad, but it is what it is.
You don't need the SAS expander unless you are hooking more than 8 drives to the card.
Also, the SAS Expander doesn't need to plug into a motherboard slot, you can use a PCI riser like they use for GPU mining to power the card.

1675210747589.png

you would attach this to the SAS expander and just plug in a power cable.
And just put the card somewhere in the case where it won't short out.
 
You don't need the SAS expander unless you are hooking more than 8 drives to the card.
Also, the SAS Expander doesn't need to plug into a motherboard slot, you can use a PCI riser like they use for GPU mining to power the card.

View attachment 545697
you would attach this to the SAS expander and just plug in a power cable.
And just put the card somewhere in the case where it won't short out.
IF I understand the product photos in message 4, the board doesn't have any actual SATA ports on it, only these SAS connectors which have to be attached to an expander board, even if I want only 8 SATA ports. I'm extremely nervous about a board just "floating" somewhere in my case, because I once had a bad experience with that.


If all this means I need to drop down to an Asmedia or Marvell chipset board, then it is what it is.

I like ASUS and I've been using their boards for over 20 years, but this board is a disappointment, and now I have to work around the issues with insufficient SATA ports and adapter card slots.
 
IF I understand the product photos in message 4, the board doesn't have any actual SATA ports on it, only these SAS connectors which have to be attached to an expander board, even if I want only 8 SATA ports. I'm extremely nervous about a board just "floating" somewhere in my case, because I once had a bad experience with that.


If all this means I need to drop down to an Asmedia or Marvell chipset board, then it is what it is.

I like ASUS and I've been using their boards for over 20 years, but this board is a disappointment, and now I have to work around the issues with insufficient SATA ports and adapter card slots.
The card I linked comes with SAS to SATA breakout cables.
sas-sata.jpg


If you are using an expander, you would use SAS to SAS cables between the cards and then these breakout cables from the expander to the drives.
I probably confused you by mentioning the SAS Expander, but that is what you use if you need to hook up more than 8 drives to the controller card.
If you look at the picture of my computer, you can see the breakout cables hooked to the back of the controller card.
The other end are SATA connectors,
IMG_1196.JPEG
 
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I need an 8-port SATA card that can go into a x4 or x16 card slot and provide "serious" performance, even if multiple drives are active at the same time. I want a card that can boot up a drive to start the system but I'm out of my league to understand the technical fine points here, including Marvell or ASMedia chips. RAID is not needed. Windows support is critical, Linux would be a nice to have. I need to get this new card as a result of upgrades to my motherboard and my system case.

I need help to understand what is missing in vendor specs that conceals flaws. I've done some reading on the web, but there are the usual contradictory statements and claims about performance, and I can't sort all that out. I've also done a bunch of product searches on Amazon and other stores, and I'm more confused now than when I started. :banghead:

My upgraded rig has an ASUS X670 Strix-EA, which has only 4 SATA ports. (It also has 4 slots for 4 NVMe drives, which is nice for the future.) My old motherboard had 8 SATA ports. From my old rig I also have this port PCIE SATA card, but all ports will be used on both the motherboard and the PCIE card for just to handle my existing ODD, 3.5" HDDs and SSDs. I'm uncomfortable with having no free SATA ports and I also want to add 2 HDDs at a minimum because my new case has room for these HDDs plus 5 more SSDs.

There are no free slots on my new motherboard, so I can't just get another Syba card. I don't expect to get the cheapest card out there for obvious reasons.
I think I'm a bit late to the party here but the suggestions from other users here seem legit. You really need a RAID or HBA controller. I could be wrong, but the any of the basic SATA multi port cards are generally bullshit and while they can service multiple drives they don't pickup the slack well and they get totally saturated and dog ass slow. There are tons of widely supported RAID Controllers out there that can be had on the cheap (I am using one for my home server and I paid 100 bucks for it).

Do some research and look at each HBA out there to see what it's capable of and what it does. I'm fairly certain you can get em cheaper than RAID controllers and they allow you to push data without loss of data transfer. Honestly, after a quick search they look nearly as expensive (on amazon). You can likely get one from Ebay for much cheaper. That is how I got my pair of RAID adapters. One for use and one as a backup.
 
OK I sent the seller of the board a message. But then I looked at the cable vendor, and the pictures of the 3' long cables seem to be the same as the picture of the cables in the board item.
Replying to myself,

Vendor says SATA cables are 1 meter long. Good enough for me. I'm ordering this.

Thanks all.

This thread is a great example of why [H] is a cut above other forums. (y)
 
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