Hard Drive Controllers

Hard drive controllers do exactly what they sound like: control your computer's hard disk. They are the circuitry involved in running hard disks and getting them to do what they are supposed to. On IDE drives, the hard drive controller is actually part of the drive. In older hard drives, controllers were separate boards.

With a typical IDE hard drive, you can have up to four devices directly connected to the motherboard. An example would be the hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM, and DVD drives. If all the spots are used up, you would need to purchase another hard drive controller card. Sometimes the hard drive controller can fail and you will need to replace it. You need the same type of controller as your hard drive. For example, IDE drives are only compatible with IDE controllers, and SCSI drives need SCSI controllers.

Hard Drive Controller Errors

If you get an error that says "HDD controller failure" upon booting your computer, it usually means the hard disk drive (HDD) controller has failed. Sometimes, you will get a 1701 error, which means the hard drive controller and the drive are having trouble communicating. This might be due to a loose connection.

The best way to avoid losing data is to prevent loss by backing up. With the low cost of external hard drives this is a ideal solution. By making regular copies of your important files, or by cloning your entire hard drive setup, you'll save yourself a ton of trouble in the event that your hard drive ever goes bad.

Bestselling Controllers / RAID Cards Reviews:

David H.

7/16/2025 1:34:00 AM

This card is strictly for SFF, and doesn't include a standard bracket. But other than that, it works great.

“ Transfers of 3 terabytes of 25 GB files between SATA drives frequently glitch and have to be restarted, and also cause system instability resulting in Windows bluescreening or crashing Windows Explorer. ”

Supermicro AOC-S3008L-L8I 12Gb/s Eight-Port SAS Internal RAID Adapter

Aaron G.

6/27/2025 3:54:43 PM

Don't forget the cooling!

“ Aside from that, it's a good controller, passes a battery of stress tests and generally does what it advertises. ”

LSI LSI00301 (9207-8i) PCI-Express 3.0 x8 Low Profile SATA / SAS Host Controller Card--Avago Technologies

Eric V.

6/5/2024 5:41:16 PM

Great Product

“ So, I dont know how well the RAID controller works nor how easy it is to setup. ”

Weastlinks PCI-E to 4 Port Raid SATA3.0 6G Controller Card PCIE 4SATA Raid Card PCI-E SATA Raid PCI Express 4X Marvell 88SE9230 Chip

Anonymous

11/10/2023 4:47:22 AM

Friendly seller, product works fine

“ Be advised this card only has support for SATA II, not III. ”

LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9220-8i P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID + 2* SATA Cable

Anonymous

10/6/2023 2:43:34 PM

I was surprised how well this product performes.

“ This is a good choice for adding additional SATA ports to a motherboard. ”

IO Crest 10 Port SATA III to PCIe 3.0 x1 NON-RAID Expansion Card SYPEX40167

Dantron

5/20/2023 3:29:08 PM

Great for TrueNAS / FreeNAS

“ Finding a card with these specs, i.e. 4 x 4 (16 port SAS -> SATA) was surprisingly hard to find on the internet, in addition to finding a card that works with TrueNAS ”

LSI 9305-16i PCI-Express 3.0 x8 Low Profile SAS Host Bus Adapter

Anonymous

5/15/2023 3:46:24 PM

Good for the price but may require some work to flash to proper firmware!

“ Excellent for the price and you also get two SAS to SATA cables. ”

LSI 6Gbps SAS HBA 9220-8i P20 IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID + 2* SATA Cable

BJM - IA

1/26/2023 5:07:32 PM

Solved my problem!

“ Able to use the three SAS hard drives I had purchased on a great deal. ”

LSI MegaRAID SATA / SAS 9260-4i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 w/ 512MB Onboard Memory RAID Controller Card, Single--Avago Technologies

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Hard Drive Controller Errors

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