PCI or Breakout for extra sata

[FrozenDevl]

I'm not sure if I'm searching for the wrong keywords but I can't find the information that I'm looking for
I have a mobo with 4 sata that are all used up right now, and I would like to add more HD's, but I'm unsure of how to go about that (cost effective). I have been unable to find the pro's and con's of a PCI card with internal sata and breakout cables (just heard about these) Ideally I would like to get 4 more sata slots, but the cheapest I see for a pci card with that is about $70. Is there a cheaper solution that I am overlooking or might have missed?

Cliffs: PCI Card or Breakout cable for extra sata ports?

 

[The Hunter]

Breakout cables don't multiply the number of SATA ports available, they're for going from a multilane connector (such as an SAS connector) to a standard SATA. You can't turn 1 SATA port into 4 without extra hardware.

The options for adding more ports to your system depend on how many you want, how much performance you need, and how much you're willing to spend. If you can elaborate on how many more disks you want, and what you're using them for, we can get more specific, but if you're just looking for the easiest way to get a few more disks in your system, and not needing tons of performance or RAID, get one of the many generic 2 or 4 port PCIe or PCI cards.

 

[sub.mesa]

If your system has PCI-express ports, then please don't buy any PCI 'crap'; most of these are really low-quality fakeRAID with lots of bugs. But the PCI-express chips (SiI-3132 / JMB363) are already better. Still most do not have AHCI-only drivers; under Windows you must use the RAID-drivers. Under Linux/BSD it's just a normal SATA controller. That's why its called fakeRAID; the RAID is actually implemented by software and not by hardware.

 

[nitrobass24]

What types of slots do you have available? PCI, PCIe x1, x4, x8, x16
Do you need/want RAID or just more ports for single drives?

 

[FrozenDevl]

I am looking at adding upto 4 more drives in the future which would be used for storage and backups, I'm looking at spending about $40 or so depending on my options (can go up a little if it is very well worth it). Is the pci-e card that much better? Also any specific brands I sbhould be looking at? What I saw on newegg doesn't look that great, so any other places I can buy?

 

[FrozenDevl]

What types of slots do you have available? PCI, PCIe x1, x4, x8, x16
Do you need/want RAID or just more ports for single drives?

I have 2 PCI-E 1x
1 PCI-E x16
and 1 PCI available.
I don't care about raid, I just want more ports for single drives (data)

This is the only cheap one I saw on newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280008), but not sure if I should go ahead and buy something better instead, don't want to buy something crappy that will die on me quickly.