Newegg has the Sans Digital TowerRAID+ TR4M+BNC 4 Bay eSATA Port Multiplier JBOD Tower + HighPoint RocketHybrid 1222 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card for $80 with free shipping. Features four 3.5" drive bays, and a 150W power supply.
How many bays does it have? The title says 4. The description says 3.
And what is the deal with the controller card? It is pci-e x1, which maxes out at 500mb/sec. Not a problem, except it has two ports that are rated at 6giga bits per second. How does that math work?
The math works fine: you can plug a 20 GB/s cable into a card that will run 500 MB/s through it, and you'll get 500 MB/s. You're constrained by the slowest link in the whole system. If you're using one (spindle) drive in the enclosure, you're only going to get 100-200 MB/s anyway. If you're using multiple drives, RAID 0 or something, your performance will drop due to the port multiplier in the enclosure and the low-end controller you have it plugged into.
Number of PCI-E lanes are the least of your concerns here.
How many bays does it have?
The title says 4.
The description says 3.
And what is the deal with the controller card?
It is pci-e x1, which maxes out at 500mb/sec.
Not a problem, except it has two ports that are rated at 6giga bits per second.
How does that math work?
It's a four bay enclosure.
The math works fine: you can plug a 20 GB/s cable into a card that will run 500 MB/s through it, and you'll get 500 MB/s. You're constrained by the slowest link in the whole system. If you're using one (spindle) drive in the enclosure, you're only going to get 100-200 MB/s anyway. If you're using multiple drives, RAID 0 or something, your performance will drop due to the port multiplier in the enclosure and the low-end controller you have it plugged into.
Number of PCI-E lanes are the least of your concerns here.