I know the favorite unraid controllers (LSI/M1505/Supermicro) can be had on ebay from time to time for cheap.  I'm not a huge fan of "trying" them in various motherboards until I find one that I can use to flash the right firmware (if necessary) and the guy(s) who sell the "correct for unraid" versions seem to come and go.  So I'm looking at an alternative.

 

http://www.amazon.com/IO-Crest-Profile-Bracket-SI-PEX40064/dp/B00AZ9T3OU

 

(appears to be the same at this)

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064

 

(Don't know if its bad taste to link to a retailer here so I'm leaving it cold)

 

These seem to work with unraid (read reviews).  I have three PCI-e slots in my unraid server.  I need to be able to address ten additional drives, but plan on adding them over time (right now upgrading my existing drives to 4TB drives is cheaper than buying a new 5-disk cage, controller, etc). 

 

I like this four port card because I can add one, and when I have added four more a drives, add another.  I can spread the 16 drives (max) in my server across these cards and the MB to maximize performance (not really necessary as its just a simple file server but a nice option to have nonetheless).

 

Plus they're inexpensive... If I find one of the typically-recommended 8-port cards on ebay, for say $100, that's a good deal to be sure, but three of these cards is still cheaper. 

 

Or, I can buy two 8-port cards, and move all the drives off my motherboard (would this be better for performance?)

 

So I'm at a crossroads here.  Any opinion on the card in the above link?  Pros and cons going with a few of these vs one or two of the 8-port variants the community has had so much success with?

 

Thanks.

 

I'm no expert at the expansion cards used for unRaid, but the first thing I noticed is this is a x1 PCI-e v2.0 card. That means it's maximum bandwidth is 500MB/s. Assuming you had all current generation drives attached to it, which are each capable of 180MB/s+ on the outer cylinders, the card would be more than saturated during high concurrent access times (like parity checks).

 

Would the card work?  Most certainly. Would the card slow down the speed of parity checks if more than 2 ports were used with current gen drives?  Most certainly. Would it have any effect on day-to-day use of unRaid?  That depends on how YOU use unRaid.

 

The reason the "favorite" unRaid cards you referenced above are the most used is they are x8 cards, capable of 4GB/s throughput, amongst other factors.