Looking for a SATA 300 PCI-E x1 card

[Ken]

I need to add more hdd's to my system and would like to use one of the
PCI Express x1 slots on my Intel DP35DP. I have used a Promise
SATAII150 TX4 card in an older system; looking at reviews for the
FastTrak TX2650, I not so impressed.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other cards to look at?

Thanks
Ken K

P.S. For anyone who has seen my thread on the difficulty I was having
with the DP35DP not recognizing my mobile rack, I moved a Promise
SATAII150 TX4 to the motherboard and the mobile rack was seen...

 

[Paul]

I need to add more hdd's to my system and would like to use one of the
PCI Express x1 slots on my Intel DP35DP. I have used a Promise
SATAII150 TX4 card in an older system; looking at reviews for the
FastTrak TX2650, I not so impressed.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other cards to look at?

Thanks
Ken K

P.S. For anyone who has seen my thread on the difficulty I was having
with the DP35DP not recognizing my mobile rack, I moved a Promise
SATAII150 TX4 to the motherboard and the mobile rack was seen...

There are some PCI Express to SATA listed here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...10073+1187117620&Configurator=&Subcategory=73

This one appears to use a SIL3132, and has internal connectors.
(There is also a version with external ESATA connectors.)
The faceplate appears to be "regular-profile", so should work in a normal desktop.

IOGEAR Low-Profile SATA Internal PCI-Express GICe720S3W6 $37
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815290003
http://www.iogear.com.tw/product/GICe720S3W6/

The second chip on the card, is a flash chip holding the card BIOS.
The BIOS contains an INT 0x13 routine, used if you want to boot
from the card or not. There is a jumper on the card to disable
the BIOS (in which case disks connected to the card would not be
bootable). The BIOS can also be reflashed. And the Silicon Image
flasher program, usually only works with specific flash chips.
As long as a card maker sticks with the "recipe", then the end
user should be able to use the stuff on the Silicon Image web site.
(Some motherboard BIOS setup screens, have a setting to enable
the reading of that 0x13 BIOS thing. The motherboard BIOS may default to
"disabled" for the 0x13 function, so you have to enable it,
to be able to work with the SATA BIOS thing. So in addition to
the jumper affecting bootability, the motherboard 0x13 setting
can as well.)

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=15&ctid=2&osid=0&

The reason it has "base BIOS" or "SATARAID", is the SIL3132 is
expandable. One of the following port expansion boxes, allows
connecting more drives, which is why it can support things like RAID5.
Using two port expansion boxes, you could control ten drives.
But if you leave the card alone, as purchased, it should
do vanilla drive configurations. So you don't have to
read any of the above, to use the card as shipped.

http://www.sataport.com/

HTH,
Paul

 

[Ken]

Gerald Abrahamson said the following on 5/20/2008 6:34 AM:

I have the SiI3132 with 2 external eSATAII ports (I use one
port at the moment), a CFI 4043 eSATAII box (4 drive
bays--from Memorylabs.com--box $200, card $20) and it works
fine with Vista 64 Home Premium. You can also get the card
with four eSATAII ports. Continuous data transfer at
52-57MB/sec for 15+ minutes, which is about right for my
older SATAII internal HDD (C drive). New drives burst at
3GB, but continuous is about 100-115MB/sec.

Plug the card in, connect drives/box, make sure card is
seen, install the software, initialize/format drives--done.
I now have four SATAII drives in one box running JBOD via a
single eSATA cable, but options exist for the various RAID
configurations (0/1/5/10).

Thanks for the info. I was actually looking to add disks to my
computer, but reading through your post, I began questioning why I
should keep the disks running all the time when I really would not be
accessing them frequently in the least (they are for storing music, my
backups, movies). It might make much more sense to purchase an external
housing such as you are using. I will have to think about that.... I
already have an eSATA that is part of the motherboard and could just
hook up to that...

Thanks
Ken K

 

[Squeeze]

Idjut alert.

Gerald Abrahamson wrote in news:[email protected]

 

[Arno Wagner]

In our experience (and I would be interested in learning of Gerald's
experience should it be different) we have found no real-life
difference (or virtually no difference) between HDD data transfer
rates involving so-called SATA-I (1.5 Gb/s data transfer) and
so-called SATA-II (3.0 Gb/s data transfer) where motherboards
support the 3.0 Gb/s data transfer capability.

I suppose the issue is rather moot at this point in time since
virtually all SATA HDDs manufactured during the past three years or
so have all been SATA-II HDDs. In any event should a user be working
with a SATA HDD of the "older" SATA-I variety I certainly would
*not* recommend disposing of it to purchase a SATA-II HDD merely
because he or she would believe a significantly faster data transfer
rate would result as a consequence. Anna

It is the same thing all over again: People mistaking interface
transfer rates for HDD speeds. SATA-I (1.5Gb/sec) can do
roughly 180MB/s. The fastest HDDs on the market are in the
80-90MB/s range and cannot saturate this interface.

The only reason to insist on SATA-II today is if you are using a port
multiplier, which allows several disks on one SATA connector.

Arno

 

[Squeeze]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

It is the same thing all over again: People mistaking interface
transfer rates for HDD speeds.

And idjuts that don't have a clue, like babblebot.

SATA-I (1.5Gb/sec) can do roughly 180MB/s.

Idjut alert no 2: 150MB/s

The fastest HDDs on the market are in the 80-90MB/s range

Idjut alert no 3: More like 120MB/s.

and cannot saturate this interface.

Idjut alert no 4:
The *150MB/s* is including all protocol overhead.
Usable data bandwidth is more likely 100-120MB/s

The only reason to insist on SATA-II today is if you are using a port
multiplier, which allows several disks on one SATA connector.

Idjut alert no 5. Like that SATAII is only about MB/s.

 

[Odie]

Attributions corrected.
Anna wrote in news:[email protected]

Presumably if the motherboard is equipped with an eSATA port it meets the
SATA 3 Gb/s data transfer specification. At least we've never come across
a motherboard that didn't under those circumstances.

In our experience

(and I would be interested in learning of Gerald's experience should it be different)

Guess not.
The cowardous idjut chose to hide in another post trying to divert attention away
and make an even bigger fool of himself.

we have found no real-life difference (or
virtually no difference) between HDD data transfer rates involving so-called
SATA-I (1.5 Gb/s data transfer) and so-called SATA-II (3.0 Gb/s data
transfer) where motherboards support the 3.0 Gb/s data transfer capability.

I suppose the issue is rather moot at this point in time since virtually all
SATA HDDs manufactured during the past three years or so have all been
SATA-II HDDs.

Oh really? How time flies.

In any event should a user be working with a SATA HDD of the
"older" SATA-I variety I certainly would *not* recommend disposing of
it to purchase a SATA-II HDD merely because he or she would believe a
significantly faster data transfer rate would result as a consequence.

It most likely will, simply because it is a newer generation with higher density
platters drive resulting in faster data rates. Whether it's significant rather
depends on the generation difference of the older drive and that of the newer.

 

[Ken]

Gerald Abrahamson said the following on 5/22/2008 8:14 AM:

Thank you for confirming you know the status of your posts,
who makes them (Idjut is you)--and confirming it publicly.

As you failed to understand the original posting, I have
removed the extraneous material you could not comprehend.


Nowhere does he say these are on the same drive or even in
the same box. It would make more sense for him to have
multiple external boxes--one (or more) for each purpose.
Thus, he could have multiple eSATA boxes connected and
operating simultaneously via multiple ports.

Thanks, Gerald.

Yes, I appreciate you having presented some other strategies to me. My
old system had 6 hdds, 4 of which (including one that was a Kingwin
mobile rack) were filled with movies, photos, and music with some
redundancy for "insurance". One of the drives was dedicated to nightly
backups (full and incremental) of my system and my wife's, as well as my
laptop (on demand) and both of my daughters' systems (on demand when
they return from university, although I have them trained to do their
own now). I figured the chance of both the original and the backup
dieing at the same time would be theft or fire. On occasion, I have
made backups using a mobile rack tray and keeping it at my office.

What makes the most sense, both in convenience and power consumption,
would be to have a mobile rack "tower" that would allow me to insert and
use the drives that I need, and then remove them. I have overcome an
issue that my Intel motherboard seems to have with recognizing the
Kingwin mobile rack by adding a Promise SATAII150 PCI controller card,
which had worked flawlessly (I am not sure what I am missing in data
transfer rate, but things are fast enough for me at the moment. Having
individual external racks would be a nightmare of cords and power
bricks, unless I am misunderstanding you. Do you (or anyone else) know
of any mobile rack free-standing towers that could be used in the manner
I suggested?

Thanks
Ken K

 

[Floyd]

Coward alert.

Gerald Abrahamson wrote

Thank you for confirming you know the status of your posts,
who makes them (Idjut is you)--and confirming it publicly.

As you failed to understand the original posting, I have
removed the extraneous material you could not comprehend.


Nowhere does he say these are on the same drive or even in
the same box. It would make more sense for him to have
multiple external boxes--one (or more) for each purpose.
Thus, he could have multiple eSATA boxes connected and
operating simultaneously via multiple ports.

More meaningless drivel.

 

[Squeeze]

Anna wrote in news:[email protected]
[30-odd lines off topic to question snipped]

Just one comment re Gerald's comment re "I don't trust the longer-term
reliability of the mobile racks due to the wear on the connectors,..."

Which part of Idjut and Bullshitter did you not understand?

[big rant snipped]

I most certainly agree with Gerald re the use of SATA external enclosures
providing SATA-to-SATA connectivity for data transfer purposes where the
system can accommodate that device together with SATA-to-SATA connectivity,
assuming the installation of mobile rack(s)/removable HDD(s) is not a viable
option.

Can you be a bit more abstruse please. Someone somewhere might still understand
what you mean. Did you practice long on that sentence or did it come naturally.

 

[John Turco]

Gerald Abrahamson wrote:

Also have these drives connected to a UPS (not a power strip--unless
it is connected to a UPS), so they don't crash if the computer has a
problem or if there is a lightning strike nearby.

<edited>

Hello, Gerald:

In reality, it's a bad idea to plug a power strip into a UPS. This can
cause equipment failure and/or create a hazardous situation, perhaps!

The reverse practice (i.e., hooking up a UPS to a power strip) is okay,
on the other hand.


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>