How to add extra SATA connectivity to motherboard?

[MrKipling8]

Hey, basically I've run out of SATA ports on my motherboard and I want to add an extra DVD drive so I was wondering what is the best way to do this. With a bit of looking round I've figured I need a PCI SATA RAID card. I've not got a clue what RAID means, I just want a simple way of adding extra connectivity for the cheapest price. I've included a link below and was wondering if this would do the trick? Cheers

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...age=7&rqcType=

[no_numb]

Raid - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Basicly adds extra ways of configuring your hard disks. Not sure about connecting a DVD drive to it but I assume you can connect hard disks to it not in raid (but not sure) and then connect the dvd drive to the motherboard sata ports. In the questions on the page it seems that that card only supports up to 750gb disks though...

Scan have this
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom...q-pc-mac-linux
Its just a straight sata card not raid.

Probs best to wait for someone with better knowledge to say though.

[oolon]

If you wish to add a DVD drive a SATA raid card is probably exactly what you don't need. RAID is a way of joining two or more disks together, the combined drive is then fault resistant. You could transfer some of your old drives to the RAID then use an original port on your board for the DVD. However the cheapest option is to go USB, if you don;t need the drive much an external one you can remove when not need, or get an internal SATA to USB converter. You can plug that into an internal USB port, given the right cable.

[MrKipling8]

That Lycom PCI card looks nice and simple, that's round about the price I was looking for. Should be plug and play right? Thanks for your help.

[Pob255]

no numb is quite correct, raid is just a way to use multiple hard drives as though they are a single drive (think of it a bit like the opposite of partitioning a hard drive into multiple drives)

Ether of those cards will work, the one you linked and the one no numb linked.
However one is pci and the other is pci-e x1, the pci version is limited to SATA 1.5gbit/s max (aka sata1, ie not very good, infact IDE was actually better, which is why it was replaced with sata 3gbit/s aka sata2 or sataII) the pci-e x1 card no numb linked too is sata 3gbit/s so much better

EDIT:
If you have an older motherboard (lack of sata ports), then for a dvd it would be worth looking at an IDE DVD drive instead.

[scaryjim]

I was about to take issue with Pob but he snook a ninja edit in before I could

As he says, for a DVD drive IDE would be fine, so if you have a spare IDE port on your motherboard you could use that. Otherwise a cheap SATA expansion card will do the job nicely. What motherboard do you have?

[MrKipling8]

I have the ASRock M3A770DE motherboard which I don't think is too old. Its got 4 ports but all used up with 3 hard drives and a blu ray drive. Not sure if its got an IDE port so I'll have to have a look into that.

Edit: It has got an IDE port but forgot to add I need a specific type of DVD drive that can read Wii discs. Trying to use it with dolphin emulator

[no_numb]

does have ide according to this http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...pVEo46LljQ4WiQ

[jackvdbuk]

Not sure if its got an IDE port so I'll have to have a look into that.

it does, its there: (well should be that one) check the manual..