I need at least 1 more SATA port fo rmy cache drive

*) My 4 onboard SATA ports are all connected to 1 x 2TB parity drive and 3 x 1.5TB Data drive

*) My 2 additional SATA ports from a PCI-Express internal card are busy with 2 x 2TB data

 

What are my options?

Additional ports thru a PCI adapter? What are the CONS to use a PCI adapter: speed? Any good model to recommend?

Replace my current PCI_Express 2 ports card by one with let's say 4 ports? Any good model (and cheap) to recommend?

 

Thanks

you need to provide some more info for people to be able to help you

 

like what motherboard are you using

My mother board is an ECS AMD 690G

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135049

My PCI Express adapter card is that one:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2

CPU is Sempron LE 1100 SPARTA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103197

With 512Gb RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161027

 

 

You may get a Promise TX4 to put in one of the PCI slots. It will give you 4 addtional SATA ports on a budget. Keep in mind that both PCI slots on your mobo are shared, so if you put a second TX4, then you share available bandwidth between both. Check out http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7408.0

 

If the red PCIe slot is not for graphics card use only, you may put there a Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 (PCIe 4x) which will give you 8 additional SATA ports. Again, *if* it will work with your board in that slot. This controller would cost of course more than a TX4.

 

Check out this page too: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers

That motherboard has a PCIe x16 slot and a PCIe x1 slot.  I assume that you have the SATA controller card plugged into the x1 slot and nothing plugged into the x16 slot.  If so, you could buy the same SATA controller card that you currently have and plug it into the x16 slot.  If you want to confirm that using the x16 slot will work before ordering another card, just move your existing card into the x16 slot and test it.

A question to ask your self is what is the total number of drives that you think you will grow too. If I were you I would by the AOC-SASLP-MV8 (PCIe 4x) card and sell your old card if it is not in the PCIE x1 slot. This will allow you to grow to 12-14 drives if you wanted depending on what you do with the PCIE x1 card. As you can see your drive requirements have a tendency to grow.

Take the existing controler card and temporarily move it to the x16 slot and see if it works. If all is good you should be able to use that slot for a second high speed controller. You can buy a 2 drive, 4 drive, or 8 drive controller depending on your expansion needs.

I really only see 3 decent ways to upgrade.

 

Buy another 2-port card like you have and use it. This one is really cheap if you can hold-out until it arrives.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280429470355

 

You can accept slower parity builds/checks and use a cheap 4-port PCI card. The slower PCI slot speed really won't have an effect on everyday use unless you do heavy reading from multiple disks. The Silicon Image SIL3124 chipset appears to be supported so use a cheap $40 PCI card such as this one;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124034

 

The 4-port PCIe cards start at about $75 (Rosewill RC-218) but once you're spending that much you might as well just drop the extra and step right up to a SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 8-port card.

 

Peter

My mother board is an ECS AMD 690G

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135049

My PCI Express adapter card is that one:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2530&seq=1&format=2

CPU is Sempron LE 1100 SPARTA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103197

With 512Gb RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161027

 

 

 

With that setup, is there anything I should try in the BIOS to reduce power consumption, without reducing "too much" the performances?

You can disable all unused features, such as the onboard audio.  You could try undervolting your CPU, but that's a bit risky, so do some research first.  You are already using a fairly low power CPU, so I probably wouldn't mess with it.  If the motherboard has multiple fan headers, then you could hook up all your fans to the mobo and attempt to run some temperature based fan control.  This will be a huge hassle, and will only save a modicum of power.  That's about the only things I can think of.