Good SATA expansion card
 

What's a good one? preferably into 4-port and 1 e-sata through the back. i suppose a pci-e one will be faster than a pci one?

i have a pci-e x1, x16, and a pci slot free ....

TIA

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=49865&...nufacture=ASUS

only 2 ports but the price is right, plus usb3.

SATA expansion cards generally come in the form of raid cards, and are expensive.

You can try one of the syba cards:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=53815&...nufacture=Syba
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=50773&...nufacture=Syba

I wouldn't trust the syba card enough to use its raid capabilities though.

If you'll be doing something that requires good HD speeds accross multiple drives stay away from the Syba cards. They are pci-e v1 1x (250MB/s) which can be easily maxed out by 2 decent drives.

i had my eyes on the u3s6 but i remember reading that it's not backwards compatible with sata3?

all sata versions are backwards compatible, transfer rates will just go at the speed of the slowest device.

I'm reading that plugging in sata3 drives may cause it to hang:

NCIX forum
EverythingUSB review

i eventually see myself upgrading to a SSD for the desktop, since i love it for the laptop so much, but for now it'll only be populated with WD greens one by one.

thnx for the suggestions so far

if you aren't going for a raid, and the drives are just for storage, then the 5 port syba card would probably work just fine.

I get $20 off the regular price if you're near the burnaby store when i pick up a monitor next week.

edit: or you could pricematch directcanada for pretty much the same price