June 17, 201610 yr I just need a two extra sata ports (4 would be nice to have a couple of spares though). Can someone recommend the best/most reliable PCIe x4 SATA card? There is a huge range of prices out there from like $50 to over $500...
June 17, 201610 yr Community Expert I have this one for about 3 months now and no problems so far... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BUC3N74/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 There are several models made by a number of manufacturers that use the same chip set but I choose this particular one because of the large heat sink. Remember that unRAID occasionally uses all the disks simultaneously and this may cause the chip to get hot. However, Marvell disk controller chipsets do have issues with virtualization and you do have to be careful if you are planning on using them there. See this thread for more information: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40683
June 17, 201610 yr I depends on the region you are living. See our controller wiki and check what's available at your place (at the moment). http://www.lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers
June 17, 201610 yr Community Expert If you need virtualization the Adaptec 1430SA is still a good option, available for about 25$ on ebay.
June 17, 201610 yr Author Thank you, the adaptec looks like a great option. Also x4 so would get full disk speed even if four disks connected. QUestion though regarding virtualization - I am using this however my VMs run on my SSD cache drive which is connected directly to a SATA port on the motherboard. Do the marvell-based cards only have issues if a disk running a virtual machine is connected to it or will it have issues regardless of where the disks are connected just by having IOMMU/VT-d enabled in BIOS?
June 17, 201610 yr Community Expert Virtualization issues are with all disks connect to the controller, regardless of where the VMs run. The controller linked by Frank has the same bandwidth since it's PCIe 2.0, the Adaptec is PCIe 1.0 (if you board is PCIe 2.0 obviously), both can do 200MB/s+ with 4 disks, although older, the Adaptec can be a good option because of the vt-d issues and price. If you buy one make sure it has the latest bios, needed for >2TB support.
June 17, 201610 yr Author Is there a newer card with 4 ports running at x4 that would be a better choice that also supports virtualization? I wouldn't mind paying a bit more...
June 17, 201610 yr Author How about the HighPoint RocketRAID 640L PCI-Express 2.0 x4 card? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115118&cm_re=HighPoint_RocketRAID_640L_PCI-Express_2.0_x4-_-16-115-118-_-Product Looking at the hardware list in the wiki I see it has the following comment next to it: "working with script modification [28], other cards/boards based on this chipset may also work" The thread linked is from 2012 so I wonder now if this card works out of the box now without any issues? Specs on this card look good. Has anyone used it with virtualization enabled?
June 17, 201610 yr Community Expert Marvell 88SE9235 based, while not on the vt-d issue list I suspect it could be the same, search the forum for other user experiences.
June 17, 201610 yr Community Expert Since you use vt-d and unless you find some evidence that the 640L is not affected I think it's a safer choice, performance wise, unless you're using SSDs they will all be the same.
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