Need more SATA Ports

[jdbaker82]

Hi everyone my mobo has 5 SATA ports and 4 are being used

- Blu Ray Burner
- DVD RW Drive
- Primary hard drive
- Storage/Backup Drive
- 5th one is hooked up for a eSata port that came with my computer case

I want to be able to add another hard drive so I can add RAID what would be my best bet on adding SATA ports? Would a regular PCI Sata card work or does it have to have raid built into it? I know my Mobo supports RAID.

 

[kiren]

Hardware RAID will require all participating drives to be on the same controller, which must support RAID. Software RAID done by the o/s won't care what you have the drives connected to.

 

[user 18]

If your Mobo supports RAID, you should be able to add in a regular SATA card with 4 ports and hook up your four current drives to that. Most of these SATA expansion cards have an eSATA port in them as well.

Usually, the ports on your Mobo will let you configure 4 of them for RAID and leave one free for a boot drive, so if you cannot boot with the primary HDD on your SATA card, this is another option.