3 sata ports, 4 drives

[chanher]

I have 3 sata ports and an esata port available.

I'd like to run 2 ssd's, 1 hdd, and dvd rom.

After researching, I'm thinking a PCIe sata card for the dvd rom and then using the 3 available sata ports for my 3 storage drives.

Can I utilize the esata port internally? Is there a more preferred solution?

 

[jFiveNYC]

An option could be to get a RAID controller card. You aren't necessarily obligated to put the drives in a RAID configuration, most will allow stand alone drives to operate.

Dell PERC5/i or 6i cards are cheap on eBay. Just be sure your get a card the is SATA compatible, not a SAS card. That is, unless your drives are in fact SATA and not SAS.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=dell+perc+sata&_frs=1

A Dell PERC H700 is what I used in my system. The two SFF-8087 onboard connectors have to potential to add 8 drives, four drives on each breakout cable.

I may be wrong, but depending on what chipset is on your motherboard, the PCIx16 slot will be faster than the SATA ports. So you may investigate putting your SSDs on the RAID card. BUT I could be totally wrong.