StarTech.com 2x M.2 NGFF SSD RAID Controller Card plus 2x SATA III Ports - PCIe

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

For £65 ex‑VAT, this is one of those “nice to have” bits of kit rather than something you’ll brag about. A dual‑M.2 RAID controller that also brings extra SATA connectivity can be genuinely useful in the right scenario—think older workstations/servers with too few storage ports, or a small office PC that needs more internal storage without upgrading the whole platform. If you’re comfortable setting up RAID, you’ll likely get better value than adding another HBA/SAS card, and it keeps cabling/expansion tidy.

That said, I wouldn’t buy this for mission‑critical production workloads or for anyone who just wants “plug in and forget it.” These cheap-ish controller cards can be picky about which M.2 drives work reliably, and RAID performance/behaviour can be less predictable than native platform storage—especially if you’re expecting consistent throughput or easy recovery if something goes wrong. If your use case is simple (single drives, non-RAID, straightforward backups), you may be better served with a plain SATA/PCIe storage upgrade instead of paying for RAID features you might not fully leverage.

**Who should buy:** small businesses/IT admins adding internal storage capacity where the machine lacks PCIe/SATA room, and you’re happy to validate compatibility with your exact SSD models. **Who should not:** anyone building critical storage, or anyone who wants “it just works” with whatever M.2 drives they have lying around.