Anonymous said:
I have an old mainboard using SiS648 chipset what has SATA first
generation. It worked fine with one SATA disk, a SATA II disk.
If I connect a second disk, it only sees one. Both ports work if
used alone. Natually I swapped cables and disks with spares. All is
good.
I found somewhere that WD SATA II disks will not work with these
old chipsets, as the auto-negotiation fails. I am using other brands
of disk. It appears that the SiS can handle one SATA II disk, but
not two. Have other SiS owners experienced similar scheiss?
You could invest in a new PCI add-in SATA card.
There was a report a few days ago, about the VIA chip used
on some of those add-in cards, now supports SATA II properly (the
VIA chip was silently fixed by VIA, so it negotiates properly).
So it's possible a VIA based card might work for you.
Other cards, would be ones based on SIL3112 or SIL3114. Those
were pretty common. Those chips run at 150MB/sec (as they're years old),
and as far as I know, do the right thing when a SATA II drive
is connected. The shipping onboard BIOS on one of those
cards, probably also has the size fix in it. (At one
time, they'd freeze if a 1TB disk was connected.)
This is an example of a typical card. This is based on what
looks like a Silicon Image chip (SIL3512 is the successor to
SIL3112 and is pin compatible). The title declares it is a
four port card, but as far as I know, it's a two port card,
where the two jumper blocks steer the electrical signals to the
two internal ports or to the two external ports (but not at the same time).
Which means a maximum of two disk drives can be used. This is $28 (at one
time, they might have been $20 or less).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287013
More info here.
http://www.vantecusa.com/system/application/media/data_file/ugt-st320r.pdf
"This allows support of two SATA devices at speeds of up to 150MB/s
whether it is an -- enclosure, SATA hard drive or SATA device"
I guess that's as close to an honest admission, as either the manufacturer
or seller is willing to make. A more honest description would be
"2 port card with external/internal options".
This one appears to use the same chip (3512) and has internal ports.
No deception here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287012
The BIOS chip on those cards, would normally be re-programmable.
You can use RAID or non-RAID BIOS, via re-programming. Assuming
you can still find the files to do it with. The flasher tool
used to support a limited set of flash EEPROM chips, and if a
card is built with the wrong chip type, the end user can't flash it.
The SIL3114 is a four port chip, and here they're claiming "six ports".
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287006
This Startech card uses a VIA 6421. There is probably no reason
or need, to flash upgrade this one. The review ratings
are pretty poor, and there isn't enough detail in the
results, to identify whether it works properly or not.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158092
That's the problem with the available PCI cards. Not enough
choice any more. Slim pickings.
*******
The SiI3124 is another chip that could be used. Apparently
the latest version of that (-2) supports SATA II. It is a four
port chip, with a PCI or PCI-X bus interface. If a card is built
in 64 bit form factor, there is a danger it won't fit the PC (that
option would be of more use on a 3.3V PCI-X server motherboard perhaps).
This one looks like a 32 bit card, with universal keying (3.3V or 5V),
so this should fit.
"Syba SD-SATA2-4IR"
http://www.amazon.com/SD-SATA2-2E2I...K236/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1307743477&sr=8-4
(Reviews here too)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124008
That should work better. It may require the usual research involved
with Silicon Image chips - namely, whether it is better to
re-flash the chip (with the non-RAID BIOS) or not. The fun part,
is finding the necessary info.
I don't own any of the above cards, so can't provide any first
hand experience with them. But they're an alternative to
your single working SATA port.
The add-in cards with PCI Express connectors on them, have the
opportunity to use newer silicon, and have more support from
the people making them. I'd hoped, by this time, that some
bridged designs would come along (like SIL3132 PCI Express
chip connected to PCI Express x1 to PCI bridge chip), but
I don't see anything like that for sale. Koutech made a wave
of cards, several years ago, which used the bridge concept,
but may have exhausted the potential market for them. When
a bridged design is built, they ask extra money, and
nobody buys them :-( Everyone shops on price, not realizing
that the card may in fact be a better overall buy.
Good luck,
Paul
