port multiplier, good solution?

[iakovl]

i was wondering if i should try to use port multiplier
does anyone have experience with them?

 

[sub.mesa]

Why? You don't have any PCI-express slots left for a real controller?

 

[iakovl]

its cheap
was thinking about making an external box

 

[compslckr]

I am thinking of trying it in my Aspire EasyStore since my 4 bays are already loaded with 2Tb drives. With another 4-bay enclosure and the onboard multiplier enabled esata port I can double my capacity for pretty cheap.

 

[sub.mesa]

Or expensive if it turns out you don't use the port multiplier due to problems with it. Generally i recommend to buy a real controller (HBA) instead of using expanders (SAS) or port multipliers (SATA) to extend the number of ports.

Performance-wise, it's also very bad for RAID and other parallel access; though for UnRAID, JBOD and other non-parallel I/O it could work very well and come at virtually no performance penalty.

Not sure if it's cheaper though. For 100 dollars you have a real PCI-express x8 HBA with 2 Mini-SAS for 8 SATA disks; for 15 dollars you can buy a simple SiI-3132 for 2 ports on PCIe x1; so it it really cheaper?