We take cryptocurrency — so the coins you hold can buy real hardware.Pay in crypto, spend it on real hardware. Free insured shipping worldwide over $399. Plain, unbranded boxes, sent from Germany.Free insured shipping over $399. Your rate is locked for 30 minutes once checkout opens.Rate locked 30 minutes. Every item sealed, serial-checked and covered by a 24-month warranty.Sealed, 24-month warranty.

Saved items Sign in
Green PCI card with four external eSATA multilane ports and thumbscrews

SATAGear

SATAGear ST-134 eSATA-150 Multilane 4x 4 Ports PCI Host

SKU CH-TX3B-MWP2H

Adds four external eSATA ports via PCI with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD support

  • RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 for speed and redundancy
  • Four eSATA ports at 1.5 Gb/s each
  • 48-bit LBA supports drives beyond 137 GB
  • Thumbscrew multilane connectors ensure secure links
  • 256-byte FIFO per channel buffers host data

Target build

The SATAGear ST-134 is a PCI add-in card that adds four external eSATA ports to a desktop system. It is aimed at users who need to connect multiple SATA storage devices through a single multilane cable with thumbscrew retention. The card supports JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 configurations for performance or redundancy. It fits a regular PCI slot and provides hot-plug capability for each port.

Deciding spec

The card uses a Type 4x multilane SATA connector with cross-over pinouts to drive four independent 1.5Gb/s channels. Each channel has a 256-byte FIFO organised as 32-bit by 64-deep buffers. 48-bit LBA addressing breaks the 137GB capacity limit so larger hard drives are fully recognised. The host interface is a standard PCI bus rather than PCI Express.

Sustained behaviour

Independent FIFOs per channel help maintain steady throughput when all four ports are active simultaneously. RAID 0 striping spreads data across drives to keep sequential transfers flowing, while RAID 1 mirroring writes duplicate data without halting the array. The controller supports spread-spectrum reception and ATAPI commands for consistent operation under continuous load.

How it compares

Measured against everything we stock in PCIe Expansion Cards, at today’s prices. Recalculated every night.

Price $71.99
Pricier than about 80% of the 891 comparable items (median $30.99).

New to this? Buying PC parts with Monero — what to check, what it costs to pay, and what is never asked for.

Specifications

Product
Model nameST-134

Questions about this item

What does the 1.5 Gb/s SATA rate mean for drive speed in my system?

Each of the four ports runs at first-generation SATA 1.5 Gb/s, so a single drive tops out around 150 MB/s and the shared PCI bus will limit combined throughput further.

How does the PCI interface affect total bandwidth across the four ports?

The card plugs into a standard 32-bit PCI slot, so all four SATA channels share that bus and cannot exceed its maximum transfer rate together.

What connector and mounting style does the card use for external drives?

It has a single 4x Multilane SATA port with thumbscrews on a full-height bracket, carrying four lanes to an external cable breakout.

More in PCIe Expansion Cards

Similar items