If you are like me and you use a storage system such as UNRAID, then the chances are you need more drives. Typical motherboards simply do not have enough SATA ports to be able to add enough drives as most only support 4-6. When it came time to build my UNRAID server I wanted to be able to add many more drives so I started searching for a SATA adapter that met the requirement. After some research, I came across this LSI controller which happens to be on the UNRAID compatibility list. Many items will work even if they are not on the list but is always beneficial to know that the hardware you buy will work.
This LSI controller features 8 ports via two SFF-8087 breakout connectors, each supporting 4 SATA drives. Though you can’t use a standard cable and have to an SFF8087 to SATA breakout cable, the end result is much cleaner and more streamlined than trying to pile 8 SATA connectors on one card. I truly like this approach as it allows cards to have as many as 24 drives on a single card making it ideal for storage serves such as UNRAID or FreeNAS. In addition, I also added some cooling for this controller as these types of cards can run very hot especially in an enclosed case full of drives.
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