I've had unraid for some time, but need to expand out.  I've got the Foxconn A7GM-S board and my pci slots are filled so I've got a free x16 and x1 slot.  The SUPERMICRO AOC-SAT2-MV8 64-bit PCI-X133MHz SATA Controller Card seems to be my best choice for the x16 slot, but lots of folks seem to be choosing the SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI Express x4 Low Profile SAS SAS RAID Controller.  The first card would mean I don't need to also purchase cables since they are included unlike the SAS card.  Finally, is $100 a reasonable price or can they be had for significantly cheaper. 

the SAT2 card WILL NOT work in the x16 slot.  The SAT2 card is PCI-X and not PCIe.  You need the PCIe SASLP card.

 

and the SASLP is the best choice for expansion at this point in time.  It will give you the ability to add 8 more drives using the correct cables.

I knew I was missing something, thank you.  I've seen in the hardware notes where it recommends only trying to run a single(maybe it was two) drives off a sata pci133mhz slot because it can only handle the throughput of one drive.  Should that matter for unraid, because if your information(in my case movie file) is not split up over multiple drives then you are only firing up one drive at a time so it wouldn't matter if you've got four drives on a sata pci card.  Thanks again for your help.

Once again, you're confusing your busses.

 

PCI-X is not PCI-Express.

PCI-Express is not PCI.

 

A multi-lane PCI-Express slot, such as the 16-lane PCI-Express, has no real practical bandwidth concerns. The PCI bus does.

Once again, you're confusing your busses.

 

PCI-X is not PCI-Express.

PCI-Express is not PCI.

 

A multi-lane PCI-Express slot, such as the 16-lane PCI-Express, has no real practical bandwidth concerns. The PCI bus does.

and there are many of us with servers built pre-PCIe with all the drives on a PCI bus.  Yes, parity checks take longer... but it is not as bad as you might guess with two or three drives on a PCI bus.

Sorry I wasn't too clear on that reply.  That's what I was getting at was whether or not through put was really an issue on PCI bus for unraid if you were not splitting up a file(movie/video/music/document) over multiple drives.  Thanks again.  The cables seem to run about $20 and the card $120, does that sound about right?

No, keep shopping around if you are in the US.

Here it is for $100:

Superbiiz

 

Then enter this promo code for an extra 15% off: PADDY15

 

Comes out to $93 after shipping for me.

 

$20 for the cables is about right.  Sometimes even more after shipping.  If you plan on hooking the expansion card directly up to the hard drives then you need forward breakout cables, like these (2 of them).  If you are using backplanes like those found in the Norco cases then you need different cables.

 

No, keep shopping around if you are in the US.

Here it is for $100:

Superbiiz

 

Then enter this promo code for an extra 15% off: PADDY15

 

Comes out to $93 after shipping for me.

 

$20 for the cables is about right.  Sometimes even more after shipping.  If you plan on hooking the expansion card directly up to the hard drives then you need forward breakout cables, like these (2 of them).  If you are using backplanes like those found in the Norco cases then you need different cables.

 

 

Wow sweet.  I didn't know about the coupon code.  I ended buying it from Office Depot with $20 off $100 coupon.  It ended up being something like $103 for me after free shipping and tax.  Superbiiz would be even cheaper.  I might just have to buy another one just for the heck of it. 

Wow, would have never even thought about checking office depot.  Thanks for the superbiiz link.  I would be plugging into the following 5x3.  http://www.servercase.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=CSE-M35T-1B&Category_Code=MS. 

The fans on the Supermicro cages are loud, though they can be easily replaced.  I recommend the Norco SS-500 instead of the Supermicro units as they are better quality and cheaper.