Add more HDDs to system based on ICH10R: PICe SATA controller vs SATA port muiltiplier

[Andre Wensing]

For what i've read so far: there's a Supermicro card that seems to work, 
  but it's apparently a reversed card of some sort. That is the one of 
the few non-RAID card that is supported under FreeBSD besides some 
Sil-chipset-based ones.

The Adaptec ASC-1405 (and Areca's 1300i as well) are both non-RAID cards 
based on Marvell's 88SE6440-chip, but there is no driver-support for 
these cards. I have the Adaptec-card, and am hoping that this chip will 
get support in FreeBSD. Areca has put on their website that the driver 
for FreeBSD will be made available somewehere in Q1/Q2 of 2010 (just 
like Adaptec, they claim FreeBSD-support on the box and in their 
marketing but haven't got a driver, although the card has some support 
from the Linux-community).

I haven't found any decent card yet with more than 2 SATA-ports that 
have FreeBSD-support that aren't RAID-cards (at least in NL)



Lev Serebryakov wrote:
> Hello, Freebsd-hardware.
> 
>    I  have hjome storage server, which is equipped with 6 HDDs (one with
> system and five for geom_raid5 in SuperMicro SATA hot-swap cage).
>  I need add more HDDs :)
> 
>    What is better: PICe SATA controller or SATA port multiplier?
> 
>    Is here SATA port multipliers for internal installation?
> 
>    Which  PCIe  controllers  (pure  controllers,  I  don't  want  to pay
>  additional  money for soft-RAID and I don't have budget for true SATA
>  RAID) works best with FreeBSD?
> 
>    Maybe,  here  is good-but-not-too-expensive hotswap cages with port
>  multipliers   (my   one  have  5  SATA  connectors on backplane for 5
>  HDDs)?
> 
>