I currently have 12 SATA drives in my unRAID and will need to add more capacity soon.  I'm running all 4 SATA on the MB, and two Promise SATA300 TX4's.  I'd like to add a controller that will let me add 4 more SATA drives, but I vaguely seem to remember that only two TX4's are supported but I can't find anything about it now.  Hopefully that is wrong and I can just drop in another TX4, does anyone know?

 

If I can't use a TX4, can someone recommend another good 4 port card, or an 8 port card that I can swap out for one of the TX4's?

 

Thanks!

See here about Supermicro 8 Port SATA 2 Card (PCI/PCI-X) AOC-SAT2-MV8

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=976.0

 

Do you have any PCIe ports available?

 

 

 

See here about Supermicro 8 Port SATA 2 Card (PCI/PCI-X) AOC-SAT2-MV8

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=976.0

 

Do you have any PCIe ports available?

 

Hmm, thanks for that thread, brings up an interesting point of whether or not my parity drive is on my MB or one of the PCI cards, would putting it on the MB if it is on PCI increase read/write performance, or just parity checks?  I'll need to check my configuration and reconfigure if it's on a PCI card.

 

I believe I do have a PCIe port available.  Specs show it has:

 

  1. 1 PCI Express x 16 slot (@x4)

  2. 3 PCI slots

 

And I am using onboard video so it should be free.  Have a recommendation on a PCIe card?

 

And does this mean that indeed I can't use another TX4 card?

 

Thanks for the response!

 

 

 

And does this mean that indeed I can't use another TX4 card?

I don't know the answer to this. It's probably something to ask to promise.

 

 

The adaptec 1430SA has been reported to work very well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103058&Tpk=1430SA

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2081.0

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2102.0

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1871.msg14337#msg14337

 

Worse case is you get a Silicon Image card for the PCI slot or go with the SuperMicro card.

I have both the Supermicro and Adaptec controller cards. The adaptec is very fast for parity checks, and I have my parity drive plugged into it. It does require a PCI-E x4 slot. The supermicro works well but with more than 5 or 6 drives on the PCI bus, parity check times get obnoxously long IMO. I'd definitely recommend the adaptec over the supermicro for you.

Thanks both of you.  I did find a reference to someone using 3 promise cards, but someone in the thread mentioned recalling a supposed problem using more than two (as I seem to recall).

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=951.0

 

But it looks like he got it working and Tom chimed into the thread and never said it wouldn't work, so I think I can use another Promise if I want, but I am mildly concerned about throughput when dealing with parity checks.  As the drives continue to get larger and I ramp up to 14 or 16 drives, it may be worthwhile to invest in the Adaptec PCIe card.  The next drive upgrade will be expensive since I'll also have to invest in another IcyDock 

 

Thanks again

iStarUSA is anothering company that makes good HD cages, I had to go with a 4 HDD 3x5.25 Cage, the 5 HDD cages don't have chassis slots and I didnt feel like destorying my case to get it to fit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816701005  $99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121913  $89

 

Both are 4HDD solutions for 3x5.25 bays. Decents reviews on newegg. I should be getting my 99 one hopefully in another week or so, and then I'll post how the ugprade turns out.