Question on expanding SATA ports (Suggestions too)

I want to add more HDDs to my mobo but it seems I've ran out of SATA ports. I'm not looking to use any RAID methods so a RAID card is pointless, but I think there are PCI/PCI-E cards that can be used to expand total SATA slots. Right?

Thing is, I have no idea what to look for. Do I want PCI or PCI-E (I'm fairly sure my mobo supports either). Speed isn't really a huge issue as these extra drives will only be used for media storage. Will the card affect my drives (ie can cheaper cards corrupt my data)?

I'm just looking into expanding SATA slots so it's just like hooking a HDD up via the SATA ports on the mobo, right? I assume you just install the drivers for the card and it works as an SATA expansion (SATA cables plugging into the card) meaning I can move drives from the card to other computers or whatever without having to worry about them only working on that card?

Also, I'd be wanting to look into a card that can support at least 4 SATA ports.

Could I get some suggestions on cards/prices. I don't want to spend over $50 USD so not looking into any type of RAID options as I don't want/need them at this point, just expansion.

Any info would be greatly appreciated (so would newegg links, if possible) as I'm totally clueless.

Newegg has PCIE 1x sata2 cards with two ports for $18.
Four port cards under $50 appear to limit you to PCI, which is probably just fine, though at $40-46 they cost more then two PCIE cards.

Depending on your motherboard and it's resale value it might be cheaper to sell it and pick up a used board with more sata ports.

all of your assumptions are correct. If you are reinstalling the OS you will need to load the drivers for the device to see it again which may or may not matter depending on the OS you are using.

for a 4 port dump raid card I remember the following being recommended in another thread
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2667&seq=1&format=2

just do some digging to make sure it will work for whatever OS you plan on using. Also it only has sata 1 ports but if you are using this for a media server it will be good enough.

You can look into SATA multiplier and multilane. Do not think any consumer boards support them yet, although I believe there are boards with SAS onbaord that can be used to drive 4 SATA drives with just a 10 dollar cable.

What motherboard are you using?

I'll be wanting to do this on my HTPC which has a ASUS M3N78-VM mobo. By default the motherboard has 5x SATA slots, 2 of which can only be used in RAID/AHCI, so I'm limited to 3X SATA ports. I currently have 2 SATA HDDs hooked up and 1x PATA optical but I plan on adding a SATA optical in the future along with a few more HDDs (possibly 3-4) which leaves me severely limited in sata ports.

I'll be needing -at least- 2-4 more SATA ports for this rig and I was hoping there was some way I could possibly just buy a card and use it to expand on SATA ports without any hassle (didn't want to have to reinstall my OS, but could if that's a must). Currently using XP Pro (32-bit) but could -possibly- be upgrading to Win7 when it hits retail.

I guess if it came down to it and I -absolutely- had to spend extra on a card I could go $60-70. I was just under the impression that there would be cheeper alternatives to adding SATA ports then buying a new mobo. Even if I did upgrade my mobo I'd still be wanting to use this same card as I plan on adding (several) more HDDs to this HTPC (and future rigs) as expenses allow. something that could support 3GB/S would be nice but not needed as these HDDs will be for nothing but media storage so I don't really need any performance but I would like to be able to read/write from my 7200rpm HDDs with at least 50-60Mb/s (not really a -must-, would be nice though).

Sorry if I'm not giving enough information or if I'm being overly difficult. I probably wouldn't consider myself a total 'noob' but I have no idea about anything in this area specifically.

A card is easily the best option. Go with as many ports as you can get for you price range so you don't have to do this over again in a year. You will not have to reinstall the OS unless you plan on using a drive attached to the card as the OS drive.

But I'm really clueless as to what to even look for in a card =/ And I don't plan on using any HDD attached to the card as an OS drive. I just want to expand on my HDDs for more media storage.

This seems like one of your only options in that price range
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013