First post and novice Linux user so please be gentle. I'm looking for a PCI (not PCI-x) card that will support 2 internal 1TB drives. While 3G/s is preferred, I understand that there are some drives that can be set to 1.5G/s (?) which may allow compatibility. I've been looking for a long time and cannot find anything that supports combination of PCI + (2x) 1TB + Linux + reasonable price. Does such a card exist or are they all PCI-x or unreliable (for Linux) brand or not capable of 1TB? I have older MoBo in Samba File server running Fedora that I would like to add larger capacity drives to expand storage. Or is a better bet just to start over with inexpensive mobo that has (multiple) integrated SATA support and rebuild system (ugh)? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 http://www.siliconimage.com/products...ct.aspx?pid=28
has 4 ports but only at 1.5 Gbps.
Silicon Image, Inc. SiI3124 http://www.siliconimage.com/products...ct.aspx?pid=27
same thing but 3 Gbps.

I can't vouch for the SATA2 version but the other one works a treat under Fedora.

( http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-Port-SATA-2...-/280439904693 )

Thank you for the complete answer. I order the second card from NewEgg. Will see how it does. Hopefully, at least from the description, it's exactly what I was looking for.

A pci bus will only support less than the sata speeds you are paying for. Consider a pci-e adapter.

You'd have to know more about the embedded controllers to decide.

Yes I realize that a PCIe would be preferable but in the machine I need this for I have no PCIe slots. i.e. it's an older Mobo with only PCI slots. I need at least 2 SATA connectors that will support 1TB drives even if the thruput is reduced. Since this is a file server, I'm primarily interested in the storage capacity, not thruput. So, the question I would have is will the drives work at all (even at throttled thruput) on a card like this in a PCI slot? The 2 drives I want to use are Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EARS 1TB 5400 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s. I don't mind if they are throttled by the limitations of the PCI thruput as long as they at least work so that I can have these 2 1TB drives in a system that has no PCIe slots. Did I make a mistake by assuming that I could at least get them to work even though thruput would be reduced/compromised? If so, is there any card that will allow these two drives work to work MoBo with only PCI slots? (e.g. should I have bought the other card the was recommended?) In any event, thanks for the clarification.

The pci bus is the speed limit. I would guess that you can get sil boards to be viewed in newer distro's. Knoppix and Mint I know see sil cards. I suspect that same support could be found or added to fedora too.

I hope I am not wrong but the drives should work without any issues as long as the board bios can support that size of drive. How old is it?

Thanks again for the advice. The board is pretty old (>5yrs) but it's BIOS will support 1TB drives since I am using those in the native IDE channels that are on the board. I just need to hope that when I add the Sil card with 2 more 1TB drives, I'll find that my Fedora installation will find the appropriate drivers for the card. When I get this all up and running (hopefully this weekend), I'll repost with results.