Review on 🖥️ High-Performance IO CREST SI-PEX40138: 4 Port Non-Raid SATA III 6GB/S Controller Card for Desktop PC with M.2 B-Key 22x42 Support by Kyle Cross

I use a couple of these to expand storage on my UnRAID server. I decided to use this instead of the standard LSI SAS card as I wanted something with PCIe 3.0 support. It was just plug and play; I disconnected the hard drives connected to my old Crest PCIe 2.0 IO card and this one and it worked. I didn't notice any of the performance drops under load that many users report with Marvell-based cards (although I didn't experience these issues with my previous IO Crest Marvell-based card either). Currently one of them runs in a x1 slot with 5 drives attached to it. When running on just 1 PCIe lane, the overall speed drops to 850MB/s, but I haven't encountered any issues with it in normal use. I wouldn't recommend using the x1 slot if you're connecting SSDs or getting the 4 SATA+1 M.2 version of this card, but if you only use spinning drives and your motherboard has open PCIe slots, you can still do use this when all your x4+ slots are occupied.