Recommend a SATA 3 (6 Gb/s) card

[Dos_Box]

Following on from my request for a new graphic card yesterday I'm now looking to source a SATA 3 card.

What I need to know if there are particular ones to avoid and if (whichever one your are recommending) is bootable i.e. I can boot my PC with a drive attached to it.

Not small, but this one has caught my eye, and has USB 3.0 built in too (not sure how this would affect performance should I be using USB at the same time!): http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-U3S6-USB-SATA-PCIe/dp/B002VVQ58M/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1368101224&sr=1-3&keywords=sata+3+card

So, recommendations please!

[Arthur]

The Lycom PE-115 is probably what you need. It has a native SATA 6Gb/s Marvell controller (unlike the Asus U3S6 you linked to), supports optical drives and has 32-bit/64-bit drivers for Windows 7 & 8 (among other things). I have one in my home PC and it works really well (I haven't tried it with any SSDs though, just HDDs and ODDs). Edited May 9, 2013 by Arthur

[LosOjos]

The Lycom PE-115 is probably what you need. It has a native SATA 6Gb/s Marvell controller (unlike the Asus U3S6 you linked to), supports optical drives and has 32-bit/64-bit drivers for Windows 7 & 8 (among other things). I have one in my home PC and it works really well (I haven't tried it with any SSDs though, just HDDs and ODDs).

 

Just out of curiosity, how does that Lycom card function at 6GBp/s SATA-3 when it's only capable of transfer rates over PCIe 2.0 of 5GBp/s? Does SATA-3 work at full speed via some wizardry or does it just "support" SATA-3 but at a slightly reduced speed?

[Dos_Box]

Hmm. Is there an easy way to determine what standard/speed the PCIe x 1 socket runs at? All I can find about my board - an Asus P6T - is from there site (see image).

 

 

If this slot is PCIe 1.0 then there is no point in getting a new SATA card card as it won't handle the extra speed :/

[dhicks]

Following on from my request for a new graphic card yesterday I'm now looking to source a SATA 3 card.

 

I have a StarTech.com PEXSAT32 card - actually, I seem to also have the eSATA and MiniPCI varients floating around, too. It seems to work well in my Debian Wheezy server, and the chipset supports attaching 5 SATA disks per SATA port via a SATA port multiplier. I tried that with the eSATA varient and it worked okay on Debian, but not on FreeNAS.

[mac_shinobi]

If this slot is PCIe 1.0 then there is no point in getting a new SATA card card as it won't handle the extra speed :/

 

Don't quote me on this as going from memory here but when I was looking at this a while back I think it had to be at least a PCIe x4 slot or better to get the throughput ??

@Arthur or someone else can confirm though

[mac_shinobi]

Quote from this sata 3 card page, not saying to use or get this card but purely because of the comment ref which PCIe slot you connect the card to will obviously effect the throughput

 

http://uk.startech.com/m/Cards-Adapters/HDD-Controllers/SATA-Cards/2-Port-PCI-Express-SATA-6-Gbps-Controller-Card~PEXSAT32

 

Special Notes / Requirements

 

NoteThe maximum throughput of this card is limited by the bus interface. If used with PCI Express Gen 1.0 enabled computers, the max throughput is 2.5 Gbps. If used with PCI Express Gen 2.0 enabled computers, the max throughput is 5 Gbps.

Only one port can use the Port Multiplier feature at a time.

[Arthur]

I think it had to be at least a PCIe x4 slot or better to get the throughput?

Depends on the PCI Express revision.

 

PCIe 1.1 x1: 250 MB/s
PCIe 2.x x1: 500 MB/s
PCIe 3.0 x1: 985 MB/s

 

does it just "support" SATA-3 but at a slightly reduced speed?

Correct. For what I am using the card for the reduced speed doesn't matter.

[dhicks]

Only one port can use the Port Multiplier feature at a time.

 

Ah! My mistake - the card in my Debian server turns out to be based on a Mini-PCIe ASMedia ASM1062 chipset, that seems to be able to handle two 5-way port-multiplied connections at a time. The Marvell 88SE9123 PCIe card in my other server is just handling two individual SATA drives - that might explain the problems I had trying to get FreeNAS working with 10 drives...

[mac_shinobi]

@Arthur - I stand corrected

@dhicks - I suppose it depends on the sata 3 cards chipset as to what it supports as to whether it supports one or two or however many