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:

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

Anonymous

11/25/2024 4:23:36 PM

Decent eSata card

“ A little pricey for a non-bootable sata controller. ”

StarTech.com PEXESAT322I PCI-Express x1 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0Gb/s) 2 Int/2 Ext SATA Controller Card

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

Dantron

5/20/2023 3:29:08 PM

Great for TrueNAS / FreeNAS

“ I am liking the card, even though it appears to be an open-box item and not new. ”

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

Anonymous

2/13/2023 11:40:06 AM

Port multiplier function not working in Win 10

“ Yes, good price for a 4 port card used for internal drives only, or for a single disk external enclosure, but not for multi-disk external enclosures due to broken port multiplier functionality (at least with existing drivers). ”

IOCrest SI-PEX40064 PCI-Express 2.0 Low Profile Ready SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) Controller Card

Stephane N.

10/10/2022 6:29:45 PM

Worked flawlessly wtih Truenas Core 13.0-U2

“ If your looking for an affordable card for multiple drive this is a good one. ”

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

H Nguyen

8/3/2022 9:52:14 PM

Surprisingly as advertised!

“ Included cables worked great for my SATA drives. ”

LSI SAS 9300-8I SAS3008 12Gbps SAS LSI 9300 P16 IT mode ZFS FreeNAS unRAID+2*8643 Cable