How do you connect more than 6 drives to a motherboard?

[tmchow]

I'm relative new to server building and have a newbie question.

 

I'm noticing server motherboards that say they have either 4 or 6 SAtA connections. How do you hookup more than 4 or 6 drives to those motherboards?  Does it have to do with the backplane in the case or just using breakout/splitter cables? Or perhaps I need an add on card?

 

Would love a bit of education

[garycase]

You simply buy an add-on card that provides additional SATA ports.  Note that to get adequate bandwidth, you'll want at least one PCIe "lane" for every two drives you plan to attach -- there are several very popular add-on card detailed in the forum that support 8 or more drives that are PCIe x4 or x8 cards.

 

[korith]

Checkout this part of the wiki http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#PCI_SATA_Controllers . Not sure how up to date it is, but it is worth a quick read and should give you a good starting point on the different terms and basics. The wiki has a list of some cards that have worked for folks as well, though the forum is probably more up to date on that. You can also motherboards with more than 6 sata ports.