RAID Card Question

[fenton06]

I am looking to expand my current storage situation. I am planning on buying 2 more 500 GB hdd's and putting them in RAID 5.

I want to have 8 ports for future expansion when I move it into a dedicated NAS box. I am trying to spend a reasonable amount of money for a decent card (<$300.)

Also, I am confused about all the kinds of interfaces it can use. PCI-X, PCI-4X.. I just don't know what plugs into where anymore!

I have the EVGA 680i chipset board, so I have 3 PCI-16x slots.

Thanks guys!

[defakto]

It will save you a lot of headache to understand the difference between PCI-X and PCI-E. You most likely have PCI-E in your system. 4x, 8x, 1x, and 16x refer to the number of lanes of the connection. You can use a 1x card in a 16x slot, but not a 16x card in a 1x slot I believe.

[fenton06]

ok, thats what I thought, I remember reading that you can put an 8x PCI-E controller into the 16x slot...

I don't want to use the onboard raid, but I also don't know what qualities to look for in a RAID card.

[unhappy_mage]

These are my standard suggestions: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030500595&postcount=3