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)

 

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).

 

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.

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...

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.

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

the problem is I am in Europe (Greece)

 

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.

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...

 

Id have no problems with one card from memory that was all ok. Just dont use 2