Any PCI Sata cards that are natively supported by WHS?

[nobb]

In my Windows Home Server build, I've only got 2 Sata ports on the motherboard. I am looking to add additional hard drives in the future and was wondering if anyone knows of any PCI or PCI-E 1x Sata add on cards which would be naively supported under Windows Home Server without requiring to install drivers? I figure that would be handy if I were going to do a reinstall (system drive failure) but still wanted to keep my data on the other drives intact during the reinstall process.

Maybe someone has recommendations for which card to get? My only requirements are that the card is cheap, low power, and atleast 4 Sata ports. I dont need anything with RAID and as long as it's not too slow, then it should be fine. Also, is there such thing as power management features, or is that handled by the OS?

I noticed they range alot in price, so I'm not sure what I should be looking for or any problems that I should prepare for.

[Riffer]

I don't know anything about Windows Home Server, but I have XP and it supports no add-on IDE or SATA controllers.

On XP you can go to Control Panel>Add hardware Then whatever you have to add a device manually. Eventually you can get to the point where you select from a list. You can see all the supported devices there.

That being said, as long as the new SATA card is not attached to the boot drive, you can add it later and add the drivers after you have installed windows.

If you do want to boot, make sure you get a card that allows that. There are many cards out there that do not, but will obfuscate the fact. Promise TX4302 is an excellent card that has been around for years that supports two internal SATA and two eSATA. Bootable as well. It can be picked up fairly inexpensively used or on ebay.

[nobb]

I noticed these cards can range greatly in price. On eBay, the Promise TX4302 goes for about $150. What's the difference between that card and something that only costs $20 such as this:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132009

Wouldn't the card above do everything I need it to, or is there something I am overlooking?

[Riffer]

I noticed these cards can range greatly in price. On eBay, the Promise TX4302 goes for about $150. What's the difference between that card and something that only costs $20 such as this:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132009

Wouldn't the card above do everything I need it to, or is there something I am overlooking?

Loks okay, but no-name manufacturer, SATA 150 not 300, no eSATA, it's not clear if it can support boot drives.

I didn't even realize the 4302 is over $100 :eek:

[[H]ackerK]

yea. I am in search of a PCI SATA card as well. Ideally 4 port would be nice...

[nobb]

To add to the confusion, Ive been reading alot of reviews of people not being able to use certain pci sata cards in normal, non-raid mode (aka. just one hard drive installed wont work). Maybe someone can share their experiences of a cheap card that just works.

[rabbit]

You can try one of these two Silicon Image based cards:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4734
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4660

Someone in the forums says that 4660 boots.

BTW, the PCI bus won't support faster than SATA 150/I, so don't waste time looking for SATA 300/II. PCI bus is 133MB/s.



> I am looking to add additional hard drives in the future and was wondering if anyone knows of any PCI or PCI-E 1x Sata add on cards which would be naively supported under Windows Home Server without requiring to install drivers? I figure that would be handy if I were going to do a reinstall (system drive failure) but still wanted to keep my data on the other drives intact during the reinstall process.

It is very easy to slipstream the drivers to a Windows install disc using nLite.

[Ren]

You definitely want a PCIE card. PCI will be horribly slow and if your using a modern hdd you won't even get half of the throughput for one drive. If your trying to access multiple drives it will only compound the problem. I had luck with the silicon image controller's to work in WHS after it loaded the drivers itself, but I couldn't install on one.

Do not get the Via Sata controllers on DX, they're horrible, poor drivers and broken ports, and only good for modding 360's.

[rabbit]

Oops, missed the PCIe part in the first post. DX has a couple of PCIe SATA cards, as well. I think one is four ports (2SATA + 2eSATA), but only two of the ports can be enabled at the same time.

[Riffer]

.....BTW, the PCI bus won't support faster than SATA 150/I, so don't waste time looking for SATA 300/II. PCI bus is 133MB/s.....


Lol! I totally forgot that :o

I would assume that transfers between devices connected to the card would be capable of higher bandwith. E.g. Backing up the hardrive to an eSATA external drive.

[nobb]

I guess PCI-e is the way to go. My motherboard only has one PCI-e and one PCI slot, so I was hoping to get as many SATA ports on the card as possible. The problem with alot of the 4 port SATA cards is that in reality, you can only use two at a time (determined by setting a jumper), so this makes it more difficult to choose the card. For any card that costs more than $50, I would rather just get a new motherboard that natively has 4+ SATA ports.