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...
Ken wrote:
> 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...
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.
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.)
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.
On Mon, 19 May 2008 11:03:14 -0700, Ken
<noreply@charter.net> wrote:
>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...
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).
Gerald Abrahamson said the following on 5/20/2008 6:34 AM:
> On Mon, 19 May 2008 11:03:14 -0700, Ken
> <noreply@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> 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...
>
> 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...
On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:39:33 -0700, Ken
<noreply@charter.net> wrote:
>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...
My systems are left running 24/7. Power on/off is the
hardest on computers and drives.
Verify the eSATA port on your mb is really correctly
implemented (can be used as removable drive port). And what
is its speed (150 or 300?). If 150, you want 300. To play
music, no problem using 150. But for data transfer of larger
volumes (movies, whole backups), you will want 300.
Plus, you have ONE eSATA port---but you could have multiple
eSATA devices (each in a separate box--music, movies, backup
hard drive). Thus, the possible need for multiple eSATA
ports in use. The onboard port can be used for music 24/7
even if it is 150, but other applications will mean you want
300 because of the time saved.
> On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:39:33 -0700, Ken
> <noreply@charter.net> wrote:
>
>>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...
>
> My systems are left running 24/7. Power on/off is the
> hardest on computers and drives.
"Gerald Abrahamson" <jerryab@visi.com> wrote in message
news:jpa8349ecaa8e3ou28bv82tr3fh9uga926@4ax.com...
> Verify the eSATA port on your mb is really correctly
> implemented (can be used as removable drive port). And what
> is its speed (150 or 300?). If 150, you want 300. To play
> music, no problem using 150. But for data transfer of larger
> volumes (movies, whole backups), you will want 300.
>
> Plus, you have ONE eSATA port---but you could have multiple
> eSATA devices (each in a separate box--music, movies, backup
> hard drive). Thus, the possible need for multiple eSATA
> ports in use. The onboard port can be used for music 24/7
> even if it is 150, but other applications will mean you want
> 300 because of the time saved.
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) 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
Gerald Abrahamson wrote in news:jpa8349ecaa8e3ou28bv82tr3fh9uga926@4ax.com
> On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:39:33 -0700, Ken <noreply@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > 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...
>
> My systems are left running 24/7. Power on/off is the
> hardest on computers and drives.
>
> Verify the eSATA port on your mb is really correctly
> implemented (can be used as removable drive port). And what
> is its speed (150 or 300?). If 150, you want 300. To play
> music, no problem using 150. But for data transfer of larger
> volumes (movies, whole backups), you will want 300.
>
> Plus, you have ONE eSATA port---but you could have multiple
> eSATA devices (each in a separate box--music, movies, backup
> hard drive). Thus, the possible need for multiple eSATA
> ports in use. The onboard port can be used for music 24/7
> even if it is 150, but other applications will mean you want
> 300 because of the time saved.
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Anna <myname@myisp.net> wrote:
[...]
> 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 Wagner wrote in news:69jnpdF33dq74U1@mid.individual.net
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Anna <myname@myisp.net> wrote:
> [...]
> > 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.
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.
On Wed, 21 May 2008 23:32:07 +0200, "Squeeze"
<rubberduck@duckies.au> wrote:
>Idjut alert.
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.
>> > (they are for storing music, my backups, movies).
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.
Looking for a SATA 300 PCI-E x1 card 
Linear Mode
