Reddit mentions of StarTech.com 2 Port SATA 6 Gbps PCI Express SATA Controller Card - Dual Port PCIe SATA III Card Adapter (PEXSAT32)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Adapters/StarTech-com-Port-SATA-Express-Controller/B003GS8VA4

All I know.

The Dell PowerEdge T20 is a very nice server for what you are looking at. Additionally, you can check out the Levono TS140 and TS440. Several things though:

> StarTech.com 2 Port SATA 6 Gbps PCI Express SATA Controller Card PEXSAT32 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GS8VA4

For the same price, you can get a Dell PERC H200 or H310 off ebay that can be flashed to IT mode, which has two 8087 ports that will support 8 drives (and more with SAS expanders), have a higher queue depth, run both SAS and SATA at 6 Gb/s. These will expose the drives to the OS, which is useful for MDADM or ZFS.

> Kingston Technology 8GB 1600MHz ECC Low Voltage DIMM for Selected DELL Servers KTD-PE316ELV/8G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H5193D2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

You can find four to six low voltage 8 GB DDR3-1333 ECC RAM on ebay for a similiar price. Those here and over at /r/homelabs have bought hundreds of these sticks and use them on a daily basis. I personally just bought six 16 GB DDR3-1066 RAM for $39 a piece for my servers. Unless your applications are speed sensitive, DDR3-1066 and 1333 should be fine for your uses.

Additionally, you can run VMware ESXi for your virtualization needs with the free license and pass through your controller to your virtual machine (Ubuntu or FreeNAS).

Or if you have a spare PCI express on your motherboard you could use one PCIe Sata controller card (like this) . Make sure you have the extra PSU connection for the SSD.

Thanks for the reply

The mobo supports DDR3 1333, so I think I'll remove the old RAM DIMM (whatever it is), and replace with two 8Gb ones. Rather than match the existing....... CPU-Z is clocking it at 665.1 Mhz???

and yes, I think it will be best to get a PCIe card. I'm in the UK, so will probably get this from Amazon;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-Port-SATA-Express-Controller/dp/B003GS8VA4/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456927817&sr=1-1&keywords=pci-e+sata

and this SSD;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-Sata-2-5-inch-Internal/dp/B00M8ABEIM/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1456928399&sr=8-9&keywords=sandisk+sata+III

Is all that reasonable/ compatible?

Again, thanks!

EDIT: just realised re: RAM speed, it's DDR.... so double the 665.... sorry

It's not much, but it'd do the job.

I'm going to do a few nitpicks here, feel free to ignore them,

as they are all my opinion based on past experiences and may have little to no actual effect

1. Avoid Seagate if you have the choice. I'm not sure if they've gotten better over the years, but of the main manufacturers (Western Digital, Samsung, Hitachi, Seagate), they used to have some of the highest failure rates. I'm not saying the drive you got is bad or will fail, but speaking statistically, Seagates don't last as long. Western Digital is a solid brand that has always been good to me. I've got two WD drives in my computer right now that have been working perfect for over 5 years through many many many formats. I've had two separate Seagates die on me in less than a year. Anecdotal yes. But the WD drive was also cheaper anyway.
   
   
2. Try to stick with the same hard drive if you can. I saw you got a 1TB Seagate and a 1TB WD. I'm not sure if they just ran out of WD Blues or if you did that on purpose. Mostly a nitpick with no effect, except that one of your drives is Sata 3 and the other is Sata 6, more on that in #3.
   
   
3. You have two Sata 6 drives but your board only has Sata 3 slots. It's backwards compatible, which is why they work, but you're missing out on a lot of speed by forcing your SSD to run at half speed. They make PCI cards that will give you a couple of 6gb/s slots for your 2 drives. It will only make a difference on the SSD, as far as I know.
   
   
   
4. Always try to find a deal on Windows if you're going to buy it legally. This probably wasn't an option at the time, but Microsoft often offers software discounts for students and other groups. If you know anyone who's in college you can usually get pretty good deals.
   
   Overall, it's a pretty good build. Glad to see you've caught the bug.
   
   
   Edited for clarity.