PCIe SATA III Controller Card Recommendation

esabet

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Messages
120
I am looking to add SATA III support to my EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital mobo and had a couple of questions:

1.Can the 790i PCIe bus handle the SATA III 6.0Gb/s transfer rate or is it going to be limited (become the "bottle neck" sort of speak)?

2.What PCIe SATA III Controler Card would you recommend?

Thanks.
 
How many of the x16 PCIe slots do you use? The 790i NB has 32 PCIe 2.0 lanes, which can be configured to x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8 AFAIK. It would be advisable to use one of these slots, the x1 PCIe links from the SB are only 2.5 GT/s and would bottleneck SATA3.

As a controller card I can recommend the LSI 9211-4i or 9211-8i with IT firmware. This is a x8 PCIe 2.0 card and requires a x8 physical slot, but also works on electrically narrower slots.
 
How many of the x16 PCIe slots do you use? The 790i NB has 32 PCIe 2.0 lanes, which can be configured to x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8 AFAIK. It would be advisable to use one of these slots, the x1 PCIe links from the SB are only 2.5 GT/s and would bottleneck SATA3.

As a controller card I can recommend the LSI 9211-4i or 9211-8i with IT firmware. This is a x8 PCIe 2.0 card and requires a x8 physical slot, but also works on electrically narrower slots.

First, thanks for the reply.

Now to answer your question, two (2) of the slots are used since I have a SLI setup. That said, assuming I understand you correctly, SATA3 will be bottlenecked, right??

If that is the case, then there would be no point for me to buy the SATA3 Controller card!!!! :(
 
What were you going to use the SATA-III card for? The only things that take advantage of SATA-III at the moment are high-end SSDs, no HDD can touch even SATA-II speeds.
 
What were you going to use the SATA-III card for? The only things that take advantage of SATA-III at the moment are high-end SSDs, no HDD can touch even SATA-II speeds.

I recently purchased the Crucial C300 RealSSD 256GB and since it is SATA3 capable I thought it would be nice to get the most out of it.
 
Sweet SSD. Well, how many PCI-E ports do you have remaining? As long as the SATA-III controller card is PCI-E 1.0 or 2.0 4x, you should not be bottlenecked at all. PCI-E 1.0 4x is 1GB/s full duplex (both directions) and 2.0 is 2GB/s full duplex, so if you only have one device installed on the card, you should be more than good.

If the controller card is 1x though, it will be a bottleneck. What controller card were you looking at getting?
 
Sweet SSD. Well, how many PCI-E ports do you have remaining? As long as the SATA-III controller card is PCI-E 1.0 or 2.0 4x, you should not be bottlenecked at all. PCI-E 1.0 4x is 1GB/s full duplex (both directions) and 2.0 is 2GB/s full duplex, so if you only have one device installed on the card, you should be more than good.

If the controller card is 1x though, it will be a bottleneck. What controller card were you looking at getting?

There are total of three PCIe 2.0 x16 slots on the board. So I will have one PCIe 2.0 open. But if I understand omniscence reply, by flooding all three slots, two will become x8 and only one will remain at x16!!! So now I am wondering if that will impact my 2 way SLI performance!!!:confused:

As for the controller card, that is the next question that I had. Any recommendations?
 
It won't effect your SLI performance at all, especially if they are PCI-E 2.0. You should be more than good to go with everything without see any bottleneck anywhere.

As for the controller card, I would see if you can find a few other threads on here about it. I personally do not have experience with any of the new SATA-III controller cards. I will see if I can help you do some research on it.
 
It won't effect your SLI performance at all, especially if they are PCI-E 2.0. You should be more than good to go with everything without see any bottleneck anywhere.

As for the controller card, I would see if you can find a few other threads on here about it. I personally do not have experience with any of the new SATA-III controller cards. I will see if I can help you do some research on it.

Thank you!!!
 
I have some experience, but not as a RAID card. I only use the IT firmware, with which these cards perform very well. The LSISAS2008 is only an HBA processor, I guess all RAID functionality, even RAID0 and RAID1, is done by the host.

I would expect that the 9260-8i or even the 9265-8i yield much better performance due to their onboard cache.
 
..........

As a controller card I can recommend the LSI 9211-4i or 9211-8i with IT firmware. This is a x8 PCIe 2.0 card and requires a x8 physical slot, but also works on electrically narrower slots.

Thanks for the recommendations omniscence.

These are pretty hefty in price but I guess every performance comes with a cost. They cost about $170 for the 4i and about $225 for the 8i. So before I dish it out, and since you have mentioned that you have experience with these cards, maybe I can ask you a few questions about these cards:

  1. In your reply you mentioned with IT firmware! What do you exactly mean?
  2. These cards seem to be geared toward Server solutions. Would they function as well on a PC?
  3. The 8i cost about $55 more than the 4i. When I compared the 4i with the 8i I see the following differences: (1) 4i has one x4 internal SFF8087 Mini-SAS connector while 8i has two. (2) 4i is x4 5GT/s PCI Express 2.0 host interface while 8i is x8. (3) 4i has 4 internal high-speed SAS ports while 8i has 8. (4) 4i is rated at 2400 MB/s full duplex while 8i is rated at 4800 MB/s full duplex. Given these differences, is the 8i worth the extra $55?

Thank you in advance.
 
In your reply you mentioned with IT firmware! What do you exactly mean?
Those controllers usually come with IR (Integrated Raid) firmware. LSI offers an IT (Initiator Target) firmware that disables any RAID functionality and make the card work as a "simple" HBA. If you don't need hardware RAID this is the best option.
These cards seem to be geared toward Server solutions. Would they function as well on a PC?
There is no major difference between a PC and a server. I use two of the 8i cards in my fileserver without issues.
The 8i cost about $55 more than the 4i. When I compared the 4i with the 8i I see the following differences: (1) 4i has one x4 internal SFF8087 Mini-SAS connector while 8i has two. (2) 4i is x4 5GT/s PCI Express 2.0 host interface while 8i is x8. (3) 4i has 4 internal high-speed SAS ports while 8i has 8. (4) 4i is rated at 2400 MB/s full duplex while 8i is rated at 4800 MB/s full duplex. Given these differences, is the 8i worth the extra $55?
The difference is that the 8i supports 8 drives while the 4i supports only 4. The 8i has an x8 PCIe interface to offer the full bandwidth (actually SATA3 is max. 600 GB/s per channel while PCIe 2.0 is only 500 MB/s per lane not considering any protocol overhead) to all drives. But there are not many setups that can saturate the PCIe bus of either card. In the end you will only need the 8i if you want to connect more than 4 drives. For both cards you will need SFF-8087 to 4xSATA fan-out cables.
 
First, thank you for the detailed reply omniscence.

For now since I will only be connecting one SSD to the card I guess I will flash the firmware to IT! Thanks for the hint.

Now, in your reply you said:

................

For both cards you will need SFF-8087 to 4xSATA fan-out cables.

Do you mean a simple SATA III cable will not work?:confused:
 
Last edited:
Yes the crucial is SATA 3 but if you don't have anything to copy to, it's pretty meaningless. Maybe gain a couple ms here and there when copying a big file to memory. I doubt it's worth the cost of the controller card. The card could even have detrimental effects on access times, which is really what SSDs are about.
 
Yes the crucial is SATA 3 but if you don't have anything to copy to, it's pretty meaningless. Maybe gain a couple ms here and there when copying a big file to memory. I doubt it's worth the cost of the controller card. The card could even have detrimental effects on access times, which is really what SSDs are about.

:eek:

I guess now there is only one way for me to find out: try it! I will use HdTach as I hear is the best to use for SSD performance measures. I will run it with and without the card and see where it lands. For my sake I hope with all due respect you are not right or I am going to feel really stupid!!!
 
:eek:

I guess now there is only one way for me to find out: try it! I will use HdTach as I hear is the best to use for SSD performance measures. I will run it with and without the card and see where it lands. For my sake I hope with all due respect you are not right or I am going to feel really stupid!!!

Apart from benchmarking, SATA3 only makes sense if you do a lot of sequential transfers. What makes systems with SSDs feel so much snappier are their incredibly low access times compared to mechanical drives, which do not change that much between SATA2 and SATA3. I predict that for normal desktop use you will not notice any difference.

Do you mean a simple SATA III cable will not work?:confused:

For the suggested controllers you will need a cable like this:
http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/a297773.html
 
Last edited:
I didn't have to flash anything to run a Crucial 256GB C300 on my LSI card.

This is the drive on an ICH10 Intel chipset....
ich10.png



And the same drive on an LSI 9240-4i card.......
asssdbenchatac300ctfdda.png



You have an NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI chipset which will probably be a little slower than an ICH10 chipset and may make the difference more dramatic in your case.
 
This underlines what I said before, the access time and 4K transfer speed are the same for SATA2 and SATA3 connectivity. If you have any applications that require high sequential transfer speeds it might be worth it, but not for a OS/application drive.
I suppose you used the IR firmware? In which style does the controller pass the drive to the OS?
 
I didn't have to flash anything to run a Crucial 256GB C300 on my LSI card.

This is the drive on an ICH10 Intel chipset....
ich10.png



And the same drive on an LSI 9240-4i card.......
asssdbenchatac300ctfdda.png



You have an NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI chipset which will probably be a little slower than an ICH10 chipset and may make the difference more dramatic in your case.

Thanks for the post. It's a relief to see positive results. But honestly I was expecting more than 10% increase in performance!!

Regardless as soon as I have it all together I will run some benchmarks and post it here.
 
It's a relief to see positive results. But honestly I was expecting more than 10% increase in performance!!
With your chipset it may be more like 20%.

AMD/NVIDIA nForce chipsets are slower than the Intel chipsets.
 
I suppose you used the IR firmware? In which style does the controller pass the drive to the OS?
Seriously, the problem is that I have no idea what I'm doing with this card.

I plugged it in, connected an active 256GB Crucial to it, and went for the gusto.

The card works fine but I'm still figuring out all the BIOS/Setup/Advanced Feature stuff.
 
With your chipset it may be more like 20%.

AMD/NVIDIA nForce chipsets are slower than the Intel chipsets.

That would be sweet.

Based on what you just said then it brings me to another interesting question. I have two WD VelociRaptors (WD3000HLFS) which I was planning to use as a the second drive in the system. I was going to set those up as a RAID 0 using the NVIDIA's built-in raid controller. These drives, as I am sure you may well know, are SATA II drives. Do you think I would see any gains if I was to set them up on the LSI card instead?
 
These drives, as I am sure you may well know, are SATA II drives. Do you think I would see any gains if I was to set them up on the LSI card instead?
Of course not.

A SATA6Gb/s interface doesn't mean anything unless the drives can perform above the SATA3Gb/s level.

Check the stats on the Velociraptors and see where they stand.
 
That would be sweet.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea.

Your MB may benefit more from the LSI card because your chipset is slower.

The final scores/stats will probably be the same as mine but because your chipset is slower you may see a 20% increase over the NVIDIA chipset on your MB.
 
Of course not.

A SATA6Gb/s interface doesn't mean anything unless the drives can perform above the SATA3Gb/s level.

Check the stats on the Velociraptors and see where they stand.

I understand. I based my assumption on what you said; that the nVidia's nforce chipset is slower. So I assumed the LSI will deliver even more out of those VelociRaptors. I guess I can always run some benchmarks with the different scenarios.
 
So I assumed the LSI will deliver even more out of those VelociRaptors.
nVidia's nforce chipset is slower but the Velociraptors don't even come close to it's limitations.

The drives can only go "so fast" and a faster interface (SATA6Gb/s) won't make the drive any faster.

In a nutshell, Velociraptors will not benefit from a faster interface.
 
nVidia's nforce chipset is slower but the Velociraptors don't even come close to it's limitations.

The drives can only go "so fast" and a faster interface (SATA6Gb/s) won't make the drive any faster.

In a nutshell, Velociraptors will not benefit from a faster interface.

Understood!!!! Thanks
 
I purchased the LSI 9211-8i but as I am now re-reading the posts I see that most people are referring to the LSI 9240. The 9240-8i is only maybe a few dollars more expensive.

I went to the LSI website and could not really figure out if there is any difference. Is there a major difference between these two cards making one better the other?:confused:
 
I'm still a novice LSI user myself but this thread seems to answer that question.

I used this Google search and there may be more explanations.

The last two digits of LSI's product number are the number of ports on the card (4i = four ports and ect....) which makes them a moot point when comparing cards.
 
I'm still a novice LSI user myself but this thread seems to answer that question.

I used this Google search and there may be more explanations.

The last two digits of LSI's product number are the number of ports on the card (4i = four ports and ect....) which makes them a moot point when comparing cards.

If I understand it correctly, if the cards are NOT used for RAID then there is really no difference. Also it seems they are also talking about the IT Firmware. With IT though you can't have Raid and based on my understanding it seems the cards will perform even better.
 
If I understand it correctly, if the cards are NOT used for RAID then there is really no difference. Also it seems they are also talking about the IT Firmware.
That's kinda what I got out of it.

I did nothing with my card except plug and play.

FAIK, I'm using the IT firmware and have never updated the firmware, just the drivers.


With IT though you can't have Raid and based on my understanding it seems the cards will perform even better.
FAIK that's exactly what my card is showing.
 
I sent LSI Support an email asking the same question and here is the reply:

The 9211-8i is a Host Bus Adapter. It can only do software RAIDs of 0, 1, 1E, 10, and JBOD. The 9240-8i is a RAID controller. This does the hardware RAIDs of 0, 1, 5, 10, 50, and JBOD. The 9240-8i actually has a RAID chipset LSISAS 2008, built onto the card. The 9211-8i does the RAID through software only.

Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.

So all said, it seems to confirm that if you intend to use it as a RAID controller then perhaps the 9240 will yield a overall better system performance but if you only intend to use it as a pass-through SATA III support then the 9211 will do fine!! And that is where the IT Firmware comes in!!
 
The 9240-8i is not a real hardware RAID controller. It has the same chip as the 9211-8i and relies on the host for XOR calculations. If you want a real hardware RAID controller, get the 9260-8i.
 
Last edited:
The 9240-8i is not a real hardware RAID controller. It has the same chip as the 9211-8i and relies on the host for XOR calculations. If you want a real hardware RAID controller, get the 9260-8i.

WOW!!!! Its then amazing how much the Support Team at LSI knows!!! That's reassuring.:confused:

So what is/are the advantage(s) of the 9240?
 
So all said, it seems to confirm that if you intend to use it as a RAID controller then perhaps the 9240 will yield a overall better system performance but if you only intend to use it as a pass-through SATA III support then the 9211 will do fine!! And that is where the IT Firmware comes in!!
OK!!!! LOL!

Just to let ya know, I tried to install this LSI 9240-4i card on Wed and just got back on line now. :eek:

I'm thinkin' I'm still missing a trick or two. LOL!

Omniscence is correct. It's not a true hardware RAID card.
 
OK!!!! LOL!

.................

Omniscence is correct. It's not a true hardware RAID card.

Oh, by no means am I saying that he is not correct, I am sure he is. What I intended to say is that if you read the reply that I received from the Support Team at LSI you could easily be mislead!!! That is the upsetting part!!
 
Hi;

Just received my LSi board last week. But before I install it I am going to run some tests without it and post the results.
 
Here are the results. These are before installing the LSi board. I also ran the same test on my WD VelociRaptors on RAID 0 for comparison sake!

HD Tach Results:
hdtachresults.png


ATTO Bechmark Results:
attoresults.png


Crystal DiskMark Results:
crystaldiskmarkresults.png


AS SSD Results:
asssdresults.png


How do these numbers look? Any thoughts?
 
I'm not familiar with the VRs anymore but your Crucial stats are horrible.

Your final score for a Crucial 256GB SSD should be in the 600s.
 
Back
Top