March 19, 201016 yr Hi. I've found two great cards. The first card is a PCI-E card, it is a 4 Port SATA RAID card, and looks to be a good one. From what I've read on the Hardware Compatibility Listing, the SIL3124 chipset is listed as a compatible device, but it is compatible Motherboard SATA controller, so is it safe to assume it works with unraid as a addon card too? I have a link below of the card that I'm interested in. http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PCI-E-Express-Card-SATA-II-RAID-Card-4-Internal-Ports_W0QQitemZ260544452982QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Components?hash=item3ca9a8d976 The other card is a HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express x4 SATA II RAID Card, it isn't listed, though I've read about this card briefly on the forum about it. It has 8 SATA ports and it too seems to be a great card also. Buying this one card would be better than buying two I guess, unless this might pose as a bottleneck issue? The link below for this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026&cm_re=sata_raid_card-_-16-115-026-_-Product Your thoughts? Thanks.
March 19, 201016 yr first will out out of box, 2nd will need you to somehow compile the driver for it to work.
March 19, 201016 yr Author Looks like the first card is the way to go, thanks for the advice terrastrife.
March 19, 201016 yr That SIL3124 card uses a PCI-E to PCI-X bridge (SIL3124 is PCI/PCI-X chip), it didnt work with older builds of unraid (black screen). It might now work with unraid but dont be suprised if it doesnt. The native SIL3124 in PCI or PCI-X slot works fine. HTH
March 19, 201016 yr Author Ah Ok, luckily I didn't go and buy it. My aim is to purchase a sata raid card, a 4 or 8 port controller, with the pci-e bus, I would like to buy a pci controller as I have 2 1x and 1 16x pci-e slots, and would like to either use up the 2 1x slots with two of the same compatible cards which has 4 sata ports or 1 16x slot card which has 8 sata ports. Any suggestions? The hardware compatibility list looks to be out dated and I'm sure unraid supports newer controllers now straight out of the box without compiling drivers. Thanks!
March 20, 201016 yr Supermicro 8 port PCI-E card is the only working PCI-E 8 port AFAIK, reasonably priced too. Highpoint RocketRaid 2300 is a 4 port PCI-E x1 card. Uses the 88sx7042 Marvell 4 port controller (same as Adaptec 1430SA) but in a X1 package. Any PCI-E card should work in a x1 port but obviously the slot would need modifying. I say should because any PCI-E card should work in any slot but they dont...
March 20, 201016 yr There would also be a performance limitation when doing parity checks on using a PCI-Express 1x slot with more than 2 drives as well. The maximum bandwidth for a revision 1.0 PCI-Express 1x slot is 250 MB/s. With 4 drives it caps the read at 62.5 MB/s.
March 20, 201016 yr Author so it's wiser to go for a 2 8x card which or one 16x pci-e bus, and the super micro card, though it is 8x, and I'm planning to install 6 disks, in parity it's going to hit 41.6 mb/s, a bottleneck huh? Might have to either get two cards like the super micro or get one 16x pci-e card I guess. There would also be a performance limitation when doing parity checks on using a PCI-Express 1x slot with more than 2 drives as well. The maximum bandwidth for a revision 1.0 PCI-Express 1x slot is 250 MB/s. With 4 drives it caps the read at 62.5 MB/s.
March 21, 201016 yr There would also be a performance limitation when doing parity checks on using a PCI-Express 1x slot with more than 2 drives as well. The maximum bandwidth for a revision 1.0 PCI-Express 1x slot is 250 MB/s. With 4 drives it caps the read at 62.5 MB/s. Gonna call BS on that. Most people dont mange to sustain 62.5 MB/s on a parity check. Most people arent using a x1 PCI-E slot to support 4x HDDs. 3 HDDs on 250 MB/s gives 80Mb/s which most HDD cant sustain. The original poster implied they had 1 x16 slot and one or two x1 slots. The PCI-E 250Mb/S is still twice the maximum of PCI and is both upload and download. Each X1 is worth 250~MB/S in both directions. So X4 = 1000MB/s. X8=2000MB/s. I assumed the user was asking for solutions that worked and made the most of their available slots. The user hasnt specified their motherboard, so to say their is a performance limitation is wholly untrue. I have been thoroughly lambasted for suggesting a 133MB/s PCI bus cant sustain 3 disks, PCI is singular direction (read or write). A PCI-E bus is twice as fast and bi-directional. In real circumstances you wont write or read to four disks at the same time. Parity checks will limit to around 30MB/s which is still around the max expected of unraid. AFAIK 4 HDDs on a PCI-E X1 slot isnt a limitation. I have a highpoint 2300 and will test this over the next week. Kevin
March 21, 201016 yr I call BS on your calling of BS. My parity check starts off at 100 MB/s and finishes with an average of 75 MB/sec, and that's with WD GREEN 2TB drives. I've seen 2 port and 4 port PCI Express 1x cards, but never a 3 port card. The reason most people do not parity check at a decent speed is because they're using an overloaded PCI bus or a poorly spec'd system.
March 21, 201016 yr VIA make a 3 port sata cards, its usually configred as 2 sata 1 ide but some cards it comes as 3 sata. only seen it in pci though.
March 23, 201016 yr I got a cheater PCI-Express SIL3124 Card last week, it just take me USD 59.95, here is the link: http://www.era-adapter.com/pciexpress-1x-to-4-ports-sata-ii-adapter-p-59.html
March 23, 201016 yr Another PCI-Express SIL3124 SATAII Card. http://www.era-adapter.com/pciexpress-1x-to-4-ports-sata-ii-adapter-p-60.html
March 23, 201016 yr The first one is the same as a SYBA SY-PEX40008 which poopiepants tried with no success. Not sure if he still has the card to retry it with shipping 4.5.x versions. My highpoint 2300 is working fine though. Also my SYBA SY-PEX40013 works but is slow on the two IDE ports (4 sata ports are two sata II ports and two sata I ports grafted onto an IDE port).
March 23, 201016 yr Author So to me it's either the two cards now. I have 3 1x PCIe slots and 1 16x PCIe slot, which leads me to either buy two of the SIL3124 cards suggested a few posts or see the link below which are 1x or just one Highpoint 2300 card, assuming my Gigabyte MA770-US3 mobo accepts the Highpoint card in the 16x PCIe slot (I'm not sure or can get confirmation whether it supports all compatible cards or just graphics cards in the 16x PCIe slot on my mobo). Does anyone know if it can support this card on my board running unarid 4.5.1? Thanks. http://www.era-adapter.com/pciexpress-1x-to-4-ports-sata-ii-adapter-p-59.html The first one is the same as a SYBA SY-PEX40008 which poopiepants tried with no success. Not sure if he still has the card to retry it with shipping 4.5.x versions. My highpoint 2300 is working fine though. Also my SYBA SY-PEX40013 works but is slow on the two IDE ports (4 sata ports are two sata II ports and two sata I ports grafted onto an IDE port).
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