SATA PCI Cards?

[bgavin]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Has anybody come across an add-in card that will do RAID1 in hardware for ESX?

I'd like to do my ESX 4.1 (vmware) hosts in RAID1, but don't want to pony up a grand for an "approved" card.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Don't get a VIA VT6421x card because it won't handle drives configured for 3.0 gigabits/second SATA, only 1.5gb/s. Get a Promise or Silicon Image card instead. Silicon Image provides lots of support and even schematics. Booting from these cards is no problem, and Silicon Image supposedly supports it even for optical drives (I have no SATA opticals to test that). BTW, Silicon Image cards have a RAID/non-RAID jumper, but their BIOSes don't seem to recognize it, even though their non-RAID BIOSes have code in them to set up RAIDs.

I bought a used Promise clone PCI card from Ebay dealer Y&L Cabin for $12 and several Silicon Image SiL3512 cards from Novatech for about $3 apiece, delivered. The latter were advertised as used and sold as-is, but every one of them was brand new and worked fine. The Silicon Image cards were identical to some sold by Newegg for $10-20.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

BTW, Silicon Image cards have a RAID/non-RAID jumper, but their BIOSes don't seem to recognize it, even though their non-RAID BIOSes have code in them to set up RAIDs.

One word on that - DO NOT flash a non-RAID BIOS on a RAID Silicon Image card, even if you only have a single drive on that card. You will have to reinstall Windows if you do that (or put a RAID BIOS back on it).

[bigbeark]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Don't get a VIA VT6421x card because it won't handle drives configured for 3.0 gigabits/second SATA, only 1.5gb/s. Get a Promise or Silicon Image card instead. Silicon Image provides lots of support and even schematics. Booting from these cards is no problem, and Silicon Image supposedly supports it even for optical drives (I have no SATA opticals to test that). BTW, Silicon Image cards have a RAID/non-RAID jumper, but their BIOSes don't seem to recognize it, even though their non-RAID BIOSes have code in them to set up RAIDs.

I bought a used Promise clone PCI card from Ebay dealer Y&L Cabin for $12 and several Silicon Image SiL3512 cards from Novatech for about $3 apiece, delivered. The latter were advertised as used and sold as-is, but every one of them was brand new and worked fine. The Silicon Image cards were identical to some sold by Newegg for $10-20.

Thanks for this. I found some SlL3512 cards for $15 with free shipping from HK,
Novatech88 has them for $3 but the ship to Canada is $32!!

[bigbeark]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

They work just fine for me.

Are you using Linux?

I much prefer Linux to Windows, would like a card that can do both.
Found the following article about this: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

I have deduced that only the RAID cards are bootable, and for Linux the "software raid" (fake raid) cards pose more problems that the hardware raid cards. I assume the hardware raid cards are the expensive ones. Probably too new to have hit the computer recyclers.

Seems that the best choice for old boards is still SCSI!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Are you using Linux?

I much prefer Linux to Windows, would like a card that can do both.
Found the following article about this: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

No, i'm using XP on that computer. There are two things keeping me on 'doze: Games and fonts. I hate Linux fonts with a passion. Did try Mandriva Linux on it tho, and it worked fine.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is an awesome OS for servers (my PC-based router runs FREESCO), or for desktop use if you're willing to learn. However the open-source code is no good if it's managed by people with closed minds - see the Ubuntu community, they absolutely refuse outside suggestions, and screw up more and more stuff every new release. Ubuntu 8 was fine, 9 started getting messy, and in 10 they barely fixed half what they broke in 9.

If i would migrate to Linux, i'd have to build my own distro. As much as i'd love that, i have no time for it.

Seems that the best choice for old boards is still SCSI!

Whirrrrrrrr... churn... barely faster than a 320 gig IDE, and completely obliterated by any SATA drive on whatever controller card you choose. No thanks.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

barely faster than a 320 gig IDE, and completely obliterated by any SATA drive on whatever controller card you choose. No thanks.

Actually no.
The interface speed hasn't been the bottleneck on drive performance in 8 to 10 years.
The bottleneck is the head-disk transfer rate and that is not significantly different between SCSI, IDE or SATA.
.

[bgavin]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Using HD-Tach, the best IDE is low 90s, and typical 230 MB/s transfer rates for Caviar Black SATA-II.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

That's only true for short files in burst mode.
Once the 32MB of buffer is full on the Caviar Black you will be back down to ~90Mb/s for the rest of the transfer.
.

Also, it's not a legit comparison if you aren't using drives with the same size buffer [and RPM].
.

[yyonline]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Don't get a VIA VT6421x card because it won't handle drives configured for 3.0 gigabits/second SATA, only 1.5gb/s.

This isn't a problem anymore with the newer bios revisions of VT6421A. I have one in my test rig, and it detects 3.0Gbps SATAII drives just fine. They only operate at 1.5Gbps, as that's the speed of the card.

I've also used SIL3512 and SIL3112 cards with no major issues.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

The bottleneck is the head-disk transfer rate and that is not significantly different between SCSI, IDE or SATA.

I know this. But on Ultra 2 Wide SCSI which is typical of the PII and PIII days, drives weren't too fast compared to modern IDE offerings. We were talking about onboard SCSI vs SATA card, weren't we?

[bigbeark]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

I know this. But on Ultra 2 Wide SCSI which is typical of the PII and PIII days, drives weren't too fast compared to modern IDE offerings. We were talking about onboard SCSI vs SATA card, weren't we?

I use Adaptec SCSI 160 cards and 10k spin Fujitsu Drives. I have two Prescott 3Ghz 478 machines, one with a 40GB WD, the other with a 73GB Fujitsu, and the SCSI machine is way faster.

On my old PIII machines, I routinely use SCSI so I don't have to fool around with the Bios settings for IDE.

Of course, I bought all this stuff as recycled parts so the cost was pretty low, typically 5 to 10 dollars per card. I could pickup the SCA adapters cheaply from Ebay, Biggest expense was probably the SCSI cables.The Fujitsu drives have much quieter bearings than the others. The Seagates run too hot and the Quantum/Maxtors clank.

Slowest Drive I ever encountered was a 5400rpm spin Maxtor IDE. Couldn't understand why a Tualatin 1100 could be slower than a 550 Katmai!

I realize SATA is much faster than IDE, but of course, older machines do not have the
controller onboard, hence my questions and your much-appreciated answers.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

I know this. But on Ultra 2 Wide SCSI which is typical of the PII and PIII days, drives weren't too fast compared to modern IDE offerings. We were talking about onboard SCSI vs SATA card, weren't we?

Comparing old SCSI to new SATA are we? - SCSI hit 160Mb/s in 1999 which was still "PIII days".

Thread title says "PCI cards" which clearly indicates PCI add-in cards.

The common PCI bus is capped at ~133 Mb/s by bus limitations with is another reason interface speed just doesn't matter.

.

[ratdude747]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

besides, most mentioned that are "raid" are really fakeraid.

my personal advice: if you buy fakeraid, do not use it as raid, your performance will suffer!

besides, 2 port hardware raid cards can be found on ebay cheap... <$20 got me a 2 port 133ATA 3ware card...

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Comparing old SCSI to new SATA are we? - SCSI hit 160Mb/s in 1999 which was still "PIII days".

Thread title says "PCI cards" which clearly indicates PCI add-in cards.

Which still doesn't make SCSI faster than SATA in this particular application.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

Which still doesn't make SCSI faster than SATA in this particular application.

Yes, But SATA isn't faster that SCSI in a PCI slot either.
So, your point is?

[stj]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

scsi handles a lot of the low-end work in hardware, ide/sata puts most of the work on the host cpu.

[Behemot]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

stay away from "sil" series chips,
looking through the Linux kernal source a while back to see if a specific chip was supported, i saw all kinds of comments in the code about hardware bugs/issues on those chips!

What? I use Kouwell 571B, the most common ccontroller with SiL 3112 here, just fine with Ubuntu server. You can buy second-hand one for as low as 5 US bucks or so.

[stj]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

i didnt say they wont work, but they lack some higher features because the driver has to skip some of them.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: SATA PCI Cards?

This isn't a problem anymore with the newer bios revisions of VT6421A. I have one in my test rig, and it detects 3.0Gbps SATAII drives just fine. They only operate at 1.5Gbps, as that's the speed of the card.

It's good to know that VIA finally got it right. Even at VIA's support forum, the moderators still tell people that the VT6421A is incompatible with 3.0Gbps drives and the BIOS doesn't support anything bigger than 750GB.