Pci Board

[sierra01]

I have 2 sockets on my main board for SATA drives but I have 3 hard drives. I know I can get a PCI board that will give me another 5/6 sockets but what is the name of the PCI board I have to get, can anyone help please?

[Guest Reimar]

I have 2 sockets on my main board for SATA drives but I have 3 hard drives. I know I can get a PCI board that will give me another 5/6 sockets but what is the name of the PCI board I have to get, can anyone help please?

PCI-SATA Controller Card. You can get them at any IT Mall in bangkok or via Mail Order by JIB.co.th for example.

Cheers.

[sierra01]

Thanks Reimar, I knew it would be something simple!

[dave_boo]

Try not to get the cheapest one possible. Data corruption is not something that you want to risk. Plus, the good thing about going with the add-in card is that when you get a new computer, you'll be able to take your set up over---extremely helpful if you're running RAID.

[sierra01]

Any recommendations? I'm in the UK so something I can look for on Amazon or Ebay.

[dave_boo]

Any recommendations? I'm in the UK so something I can look for on Amazon or Ebay.

I'm not sure what you use your computer for or how old it is. If your just a general user, and the computer is more than a year old, I would recommend staying with a PCI based card. If you use it more intensely than for general usage (think video/photo editing, playing games, etc) or it's one or less year old I would steer you toward a PCI-Express card.

The difference between a PCI card and a PCI-Express card is mostly their interface. The PCI cards are a shared bus parallel connection at a max 32 bit by 33 mhz-for a max of 133 MegaBytes/Sec (this is of course consumer grade...workstations can use a 64 bit by 133 mhz-for a max of 1066 MegaBytes/Sec called PCI-X). Also, any other items on the PCI bus are a drain....you don't get that speed to each slot, but rather it's shared. Now on the other hand, PCI-Express has a serial point to point connection that gives you 250 MegaBytes/Sec per lane (so if you see a x1 slot it's 250 MegaBytes/sec, a x4 is 1000 MegaBytes/sec, etc).

You will have to determine what type of slot works for you, but be aware, if you're motherboard supports it, go for PCI-Express card. Reason being is that PCI is being phased out, and you don't want to be left out of the loop at a later date. I've included a picture of both PCI and PCI-Express to help you determine which you have.

Note in this picture you have four PCI-Express slots (notice how they're offset toward the right...that's so you can't jam a PCI card in them) on top and a single PCI slot on bottom. You've got an x4, x16, x1, x16.

Now you can stick any PCI-Express card in any PCI-Express slot as long as the slot is greater than or equal to the rated number of lanes of the card. Of course there's exceptions, for example, if you're willing to cut the end of the slot out you can run a card with more lanes than the slot is rated for---the card will just run with the lanes available.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me answer your question. There's no doubt that running an add in card that can handle your drives is the way to go. If your motherboard's SATA ports burn out, you're left with the choice to either get a new motherboard or an add in card. It's espcecially bad if you use RAID, because your array will be broken and not rebuild-able if you don't use the exact same controller--which means a brand new motherboard(and most likely a re-install!) or simply a new controller (no re-install).

I'm extremely partial to 3-ware, LSI, Intel, Adaptec, or Highpoint controllers in that order. Highpoint wins for the price, but it's not usually a 'real' controller since it passes the processing load to your CPU. Adaptec is one of the most established companies, but a bit more pricey and uses an onboard processor. Intel is known for their rock stable operation, but also their sky high prices. LSI is another old player, but usually is faster than Adaptec cards--but also cheaper, with resulting little bit less stability. 3-ware is the computer definition of Cadillac CTS-V. Fast, stable, and gonna but a dent in your pocket book. I'll probably get hatemail becaue I didnt include Areca, but they're overpriced and since they cheat in benchmarks I recommend staying away from them.

I don't know your budget, but here's a PCI based Highpoint card, and a PCI based LSI card. I can't find any of the other brands I've recommended in PCI trim, but this gives you an idea.

And for your PCI-Express options: here's a list of all 4 port controllers carried by Newegg.

[sierra01]

My PC is only a few weeks old, its AMD Athalon 64x2 dual core processor 4800+ 2.4GHz with 2GB of ram. I'm not into editing movies or photos or playing games. It has 5 PCI slots all the same size. I dont think I have RAID, it asks me if I install XP and I always say no.

Keep it simple dave_boo!