NLS Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I am considering the purchase of a supported SATA(II) card for my unRAID. My hardware is in my sig. Since my mobo is PCI only, I wonder if the additional cost (~3x) of 4-port SATA2 (ie. 300) cards is justified ever 4-port SATA1 (ie. 150). For PCI-e I would be looking at SATA2 only, but now I am not sure. I am looking at Promise SATA300 TX4 and SATA150 TX4, through European ebay. Note that I plan to populate all 4 ports. (my box has space for 3 more disks, so one of the older IDE is going out, so I will stay with 2 IDE, independent masters, which should be a small performance boost too, over the master/slave scenario I have on one bus now) Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 To answer your questions, I doubt you'd see any performance difference. I'd be more worried that these SATA1 controllers are getting long in the tooth. SATA II has likely been around for 4-5 years. Also not sure if they would work well with high capacity drives or not (you'd likely be able to search and determine if 1.5T and 2T drives are compatible). Quote Link to comment
BryantD Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I am considering the purchase of a supported SATA(II) card for my unRAID. My hardware is in my sig. Since my mobo is PCI only, I wonder if the additional cost (~3x) of 4-port SATA2 (ie. 300) cards is justified ever 4-port SATA1 (ie. 150). For PCI-e I would be looking at SATA2 only, but now I am not sure. I am looking at Promise SATA300 TX4 and SATA150 TX4, through European ebay. Note that I plan to populate all 4 ports. (my box has space for 3 more disks, so one of the older IDE is going out, so I will stay with 2 IDE, independent masters, which should be a small performance boost too, over the master/slave scenario I have on one bus now) It might be less expensive to just upgrade your MB if you can reuse your memory & CPU. That way you can get SATA2 ports and if you find a MB with 8 or more ports you may not have to buy additional cards. Just a thought. Quote Link to comment
NLS Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 No goes really expensive. In fact it was a really premium mobo for its time (ie. for that type of CPU and RAM). I cannot go much higher except if I really change everything - not in my plans right now). So should I go forward with a Promise SATA150 TX4? Or someone can propose a better (price/performance) PCI solution? (compatible to unRAID of course) In fact I thought that those Promise TX4 are pretty common in unRAIDland... Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 SATA150 TX4 are terrible. Well one is OK but as soon as you add more than one I had massive instability problems that I could never resolve. I had 6 and gave 4 away for free i hated them so much. Do not buy. Quote Link to comment
stchas Posted March 5, 2009 Share Posted March 5, 2009 I put one of these in my "original equipment" unRAID a couple of weeks ago and it runs just fine. I did flash the BIOS before installation. Runs on a SiI3114 controller. I also have one in my desktop system to support my recent "more modern" DVD purchase (SATA interface). And it's very affordable ($19 + S/H). Controller: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280003 BIOS: http://www.siliconimage.com/support/searchresults.aspx?pid=28&cat=3 Kevin Quote Link to comment
NLS Posted March 5, 2009 Author Share Posted March 5, 2009 the problem is I am in Europe (Greece) Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 I forgot to mention the person i gave 3 away to couldn't make them stable either with anyting more than one card. It would work for a long time then just randomly die. I really cannot stress strongly enough how much we wasted trying to find the root of this problem. I purchased the Supermicro card and in the exact same board ZERO issues ever. Quote Link to comment
NLS Posted March 6, 2009 Author Share Posted March 6, 2009 I plan to buy just one (my machine doesn't fit more disks). Doesn't mean I *HAVE* to buy Promise, but I am not sure of the compatible chipsets/firmwares with unRAID... Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Id have no problems with one card from memory that was all ok. Just dont use 2 Quote Link to comment
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