increasing sata ports

[greenfroghorn]

My motherboard has 4 sata ports and I want to increse the sata ports by using a sata card. Will it be compatiable with Freenas?

 

[xbmcg]

It depends. What card and what controller used on it?

 

[greenfroghorn]

I have no particular controller in mind. I would buy one which is supported by freenas.I will be using software raid built in freenas.

 

[Brand]

Will it be compatiable with Freenas?

We really don't know since you didn't ask about a specific card.

 

[greenfroghorn]

So there are cards which are supported by freenas? Are most cards supported or few?

 

[survive]

Hi greenfroghorn,

There are a ton of cards that work, but there are some that don't.

If there is anything more you can tell us that would help us understand what you need (PCI, PCI-e? 2 ports, 4 ports, more ports?) we would be much better equipped to help you.

Here's a list of pretty much whats available as of a bout a year ago:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

-Will

 

[greenfroghorn]

will this card work

4 Port SATA Serial ATA PCI RAID Controller Card - Silicon Image
SIL3114 chipset

http://www.ebay.in/itm/4-Port-SATA-Serial-ATA-PCI-RAID-Controller-Card-Silicon-Image-/270910433286?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_203&hash=item3f13852806

Wil I be able to put the hard disks attched to the mb and the card into a single array?

 

[survive]

Hi greenfroghorn,

I believe that card is supported, but it uses Silicon Image controller which is a pretty basic controller....given my choice I would look for something else.

The specific card you are looking at is a PCI card which doesn't really have the bandwidth needed to support more than a single drive, you would be much better off with even the same controller chip on a PCI-e 1x card if that is an option.

To put it bluntly, yes that card should work, but I wouldn't expect much performance out of a system that used it.

-Will

 

[Ultfris101]

I'm in a similar position and since i have some pci express slots i'm looking at this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018

Pretty sure the marvell chipset is well suited but i haven't bought it yet to try.

I have an asus m4a88t-m motherboard i'm using for freenas and works well so far but do wish i had gotten something with sata iii ports but more on principle than anything else. Sata ii is plenty fast for my home file server needs. Now if only disks would get back to the prices they were last fall...