hello everyone,

 

has anyone experience with a solid PCI controller for SATA drives?

 

maybe 4 ports?

 

 

right now i use my 2 onboard ports as well as a SATA raid port that is onboard too.

 

next days i want to upgrade my system from the free 3drive licence to the next level.

best thing in mind was of course a new board+cpu+chassis with 8 or more slots

but.. my bank account tells me, i should go for a controller first

 

 

thanks for any advice

 

 

edit:

i found an older sata 2 PC controller with 4 ports, but its only 1.5 gb/s and therefor no sataII

should i get high performance problems, if i take down my new SATA II discs and use the SATA I controller?

PCI or PCIe?

 

PCIe is much preferred, if you have a moderm motherboard.

 

SATA I vs SATA II is not as much an issue as you would think.  The speed is how fast the interface is between the drive and the computer.  If the drive can't supply data fast enough, the extra speed goes to waste.  And that is normally the case 99% of the time.

 

That being said, anything modern will be SATA II capable.

Generally you do not want to use the PCI bus for more than 2 drives total. Preferably you should go for a PCI-Express controller, if your motherboard has the slots.

 

Search the forums to find the details -- http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=8222.0

 

 

There's not a lot of point about worrying about getting 3.0 Gbps SATA, since PCI only supports 133 MB/s for ALL devices. If you're on a shoestring, just get the cheapest compatible PCI board you can find. Since your board only has two SATA ports, I'm guessing it's probably too old for PCI-E and has an AGP video slot.

I agree that PCIe is better, but if you really want a PCI SATA controller the Promise TX4 is as solid as they come.  I used one for 6 months to a year with no problems.

thank you all :-)

 

my board has some strange bug regarding onboard graphics. therefor i have to use my PCIe slot for an older graphics card

however there are still 2 more PCI slots free.

but if i understand you right, BOTH together can only use a bandwith of 133MB/s ?

 

 

so it wouldn't be any effective to use more than 1 drive with the PCI?

i guess i should give it a try. because right now i only want to plug in 1 more HDD - and that, however, would work with 133MB/s.

 

pls correct me, if i misunderstood you.

 

next thing i have to figure out, is how to use a PCI SATA Controller with linux

 

thanks

 

Correct, PCI slots generally share one set amount of bandwidth.  This is why we recommend you use PCIe slots whenever possible.

 

You can put as many drives as you like on your PCI slots, but the more you have the slower your parity checks and rebuilds from parity will be.  Multiple simultaneous writes will also be slow.  General reading (such as streaming movies) will be unaffected.

 

If you are worried about speed and you simply must use a large number of drives on the PCI bus, then I would recommend using a cache drive.  This will allow you to get fast writes to the server when it matters (when you are sitting there waiting for the transfer to finish).  The slow write will then happen in the middle of the night when it doesn't matter.

 

One drive on the PCI bus should be totally fine.  I doubt you would notice any performance decrease at all with just one drive with all that bandwidth to itself.  If you only need one extra SATA port, then there are cheaper options than the TX4.

Another alternative might be to look for a PCI graphics card.

 

Might be able to pick up an old cheap one on eBay andthen go for the PCIe card. That would give you more than one SATA with higher speeds.

 

Josh

hi,

 

I will look into all your advices. Thanks so far, I appreciate you all.

while looking for a cheap PCI express controller, I found one (europe) for 23 euros including 2 internal SATA 300 as well as 2 external eSATA

 

only thing that makes me suspicious is the small slot space.

can i use a card like this one in a much bigger PCIe x16 slot, where usually high end graphic cards are used in?

 

 

oh yes and one maybe stupid question. do i need to install any driver for such controller cards within linux?

or is it simple P'n'P

The size isn't a problem, you can use it in any PCIe slot (x1, x16, etc.).  Just check the hardware compatibility page and make sure the controller is supported by unRAID.  As long as it is on that list, it should be plug and play.  If it isn't, it still may work but you may have to install your own drivers.

You can use x1, x4, x8, and x16 cards in an x16 slot.  (With the exception of a few motherboards which only allow graphics cards in the x16 slot.)  You can also use bigger cards in smaller slots if you put a notch in the back of the slot (some slots are pre-notched) and if there are no components blocking the card behind the slot.  The card will just run at the slower speed.  And sometimes the motherboard will have a slot that is physically the size of an x16 slot but only 4 or 8 lanes are connected.  PCIe is very flexible.

 

I'd check the specs on that card carefully, though.  Is it 2 internal plus 2 external or is it 2 internal or 2 external?  And, as suggested, check the compatibility page to make sure it's supported.

If it isn't, it still may work but you may have to install your own drivers.

 

Warning - stick with a supported card.  Installing your own drivers is NOT an option for a typical user, and even if you know what you're doing it may not work.

 

Some users have requested LimeTech to add support for newer controllers, which used to be done routinely but lately has not been as readily done.  The last conroller added ("Supermicro SAS") took some serious effort from LimeTech and still has a glitch or two.