StarTech.com SATA PCIe Card - 10 Port PCIe SATA Expansion Card - 6Gbps - Low/Full Profile - Stacked SATA Connectors - ASM1062 Non-Raid - PCI Express to SATA Converter/Adapter

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

For £87 ex-VAT this StarTech PCIe-to-SATA card is a pretty sensible “make the server do more” purchase—assuming your real goal is adding extra SATA bays in a desktop/workstation/server chassis. The ASM1062 non-RAID angle is exactly why it’s good value: you avoid paying for RAID features you might not need, and you get a straightforward set of SATA ports that just present disks to the OS. In day-to-day use (media storage, backups, lab gear, small file servers), it’s the kind of card that tends to be boring—in a good way.

I’d recommend it for anyone who has spare PCIe slots and wants cheap extra storage capacity with minimal faff, especially when they don’t care about hardware RAID or fancy management. Where I’d push back: if you’re building something that needs robust, controller-level performance under sustained multi-disk load, or you’re expecting it to behave like a proper RAID controller, this isn’t that. Also, note the category mismatch (listed under “portable docking”): it’s not a docking solution at all—it’s an internal expansion card, so you’ll need a suitable chassis and power/cabling discipline.