Is there a suggested SATA card to add at least 4 SATA ports?  I checked the HCL and didn't see a preferred card.  This is the board I have in my setup:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128342

 

I looked at the Supermicros 8 port card, but I don't think that will work on my board?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

If you don't mind some of your drives being slower than the rest, the Promise TX4 is a nice, easy, reliable, and relatively inexpensive card that will give you an additional 4 SATA II ports.  I use one, and I know a lot of other unRAIDers do too.  It is literally plug and play with unRAID, setup couldn't be easier.  The only downside is that it will bottleneck your drives through the PCI bus, which means that if you do a lot of simultaneous read/write operations to the server (such as transferring files while listening to music or watching a movie), then you will notice a significant slowdown, and your movie/music will probably skip.  If you only ever do one thing at a time with your unRAID server, then chances are you won't notice any difference between your drives on the TX4 card and your drives connected directly to the motherboard.

 

If you care about all your drives being as fast as possible, then you need a card that uses PCI-e, not PCI.  The Promise FTTX2650 is an option, but it is far more expensive, as you can see (especially considering that it only gives you 2 ports).

 

Unless money is not an issue for you, my advice is to get the TX4 and put your least used drives on it.

Rajahal, can you advise if there will be any issues with having 2 Promise TX4 cards in my Unraid box? Is there a better solutiion? The mobo only supports pci, not pci-x.

Sorry, I'm not sure.  I don't think there will be a problem running two of the same card, but I don't know for sure, since I only have one of 'em.  A hero member will probably know.

When I first started looking at add on cards, most people didn't report problems until a 3rd card was installed.  A few had problems with 2, but not very often.

 

As far as my situation, I really only do one thing at a time.  I either copy files to/from or watch/listen to what's on it.  That said, if I wanted a PCI-E card with 4 ports that is also easy to install, has few problems, etc, what would I choose?  The Promise TX4 is on auto notify on Newegg.  It's $70, so I wondered what a good 4 port PCI-E card that works well with unRAID would cost.

 

Thanks!

As far as my situation, I really only do one thing at a time.  I either copy files to/from or watch/listen to what's on it.  That said, if I wanted a PCI-E card with 4 ports that is also easy to install, has few problems, etc, what would I choose?  The Promise TX4 is on auto notify on Newegg.  It's $70, so I wondered what a good 4 port PCI-E card that works well with unRAID would cost.

 

I use this Rosewill RC-218 PCI-E 4 port SATA card.  I haven't had any issues with it.  There is a thread for it in the forum.

That's the one I was thinking about using.  I read about it on the HCL list, but I wanted to ask for opinions based on my board.  That's at least one good vote approving it. (=

I have two TX-4s - one is SATA II and hte other SATA I, and they co-exist perfectly. If I could be sure my spare PCI-e 16x slot would take a SATA card (PCIe x4) I'd replace at least one TX-4 with a PCIe card.

The Rosewill says "PCI Express x4 (x8 and x16 slot compatible)" on the newegg website, so it "should" work.  For unRAID, is this correct?  I'm assuming it is, but you know what you get for assuming. 

The Rosewill says "PCI Express x4 (x8 and x16 slot compatible)" on the newegg website, so it "should" work.  For unRAID, is this correct?  I'm assuming it is, but you know what you get for assuming.   

Yes, it is just plug and play with no settings or configuring to do.  All  I did was plug it in and hook drives to it.  I have a 2ed one ready to install next time my unRAID is shut down.

The Rosewill says "PCI Express x4 (x8 and x16 slot compatible)" on the newegg website, so it "should" work.  For unRAID, is this correct?  I'm assuming it is, but you know what you get for assuming.   

Yes, it is just plug and play with no settings or configuring to do.  All  I did was plug it in and hook drives to it.  I have a 2ed one ready to install next time my unRAID is shut down.

Do you have an SLI board?  I thought most people bought non SLI boards for unRAID since they are generally significantly cheaper than SLI boards.  Mine only has 1 PCI Express x16, 1 PCI Express x1 and PCI Slots.

The Rosewill says "PCI Express x4 (x8 and x16 slot compatible)" on the newegg website, so it "should" work.  For unRAID, is this correct?  I'm assuming it is, but you know what you get for assuming.   

Yes, it is just plug and play with no settings or configuring to do.  All  I did was plug it in and hook drives to it.  I have a 2ed one ready to install next time my unRAID is shut down.

Do you have an SLI board?  I thought most people bought non SLI boards for unRAID since they are generally significantly cheaper than SLI boards.  Mine only has 1 PCI Express x16, 1 PCI Express x1 and PCI Slots.

 

My board isn't SLI, but it does have onboard video AND and a free PCIe x16 slot... which I won't use for a video card for unRAID of course.

Do you have an SLI board?  I thought most people bought non SLI boards for unRAID since they are generally significantly cheaper than SLI boards.  Mine only has 1 PCI Express x16, 1 PCI Express x1 and PCI Slots.

No I have a Supermicro C2SEE MB that has 2 PCI-E slots and on board video. 

The Rosewill says "PCI Express x4 (x8 and x16 slot compatible)" on the newegg website, so it "should" work.  For unRAID, is this correct?  I'm assuming it is, but you know what you get for assuming.   

 

It's my understanding that any PCI Express card *should* work in the sized slot it was built for, or any larger one, with more lanes.  An x4 should work in any x4, x8, or x16.  The problem is the x16 slot of some motherboards.  Some of the motherboard makers designed them specifically for video cards, which after all is their primary purpose, but did NOT take care to make sure they worked for other card types.  We know of at least one Gigabyte board, and I believe there are several other boards, that support video cards only in the x16 slot(s), and no matter what your addon card may claim, it won't work.  Regrettable.  I have seen Newegg reviews for several cards that claimed they worked fine in the x16 slot in their computer, but all that proved is that they had a motherboard with a compatible x16 slot.  There is no guarantee that it will work in another motherboard.

 

If you are a new user deciding on a board, check the linked thread(s) for a board in the Hardware Compatibility page, for any posts that may confirm a positive or negative result of a disk controller in the x16 slot.  There are few posts about this, so you may have a better chance asking the manufacturer.  Or you may very well have to test it for yourself.  If you do, please report your success or failure.

 

We probably need to add notes about this to the Motherboard section, where x16 support for disk controllers is known.

I have also heard that some motherboards have the onbaord video disabled if a PCIe card is pu in the x16 slot - even if the card is not a video card.

We probably need to add notes about this to the Motherboard section, where x16 support for disk controllers is known.

 

Here start your list with this one:

 

ECS A740GM-M works with 1430SA

« on: July 12, 2009, 06:13:04 PM »   

 

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Just wannted to let people know that I installed an Adapted 1430SA card in my Pcie 16x slot on my ECS A740GM-M and it works fine.

 

Since some motherboards do not seem to like anything but a video card in the 16x slot  , someone may want to add a column or notes for those boards that do work.

 

YMMV SWUAD

It's my understanding that any PCI Express card *should* work in the sized slot it was built for, or any larger one, with more lanes.  An x4 should work in any x4, x8, or x16.  The problem is the x16 slot of some motherboards.  Some of the motherboard makers designed them specifically for video cards, which after all is their primary purpose, but did NOT take care to make sure they worked for other card types.  We know of at least one Gigabyte board, and I believe there are several other boards, that support video cards only in the x16 slot(s), and no matter what your addon card may claim, it won't work.  Regrettable.  I have seen Newegg reviews for several cards that claimed they worked fine in the x16 slot in their computer, but all that proved is that they had a motherboard with a compatible x16 slot.  There is no guarantee that it will work in another motherboard.

 

While I will agree that having information is better than no information, the only issue I have with trying to list them linearly in the mobo compatibility table is that this isn't a O(n) problem; it's an O(n^2) problem.  There are the cards, and there are the motherboards, and in testing it could be the card that is the problem, not the mobo.  I know on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P, I have no problems with putting an LSI SAS3081E-R card in the 16x slots, but I believe my cheap SYBA 1x cards will not work (haven't tried, but that's based on the threads in the Motherboards forum). 

 

So I don't think we should just simply flag a motherboard as "16x supports video only", any more than simply flagging a mobo as "works with unRAID" and leaving it at that.  And I'd say that's the case even if the vendor's tech support indicates the slots only support video; IMO, it's better if this community, as it has done already for so long, helps provide the ultimate information as to what works and what doesn't work with unRAID.