Looking for a good ESATA Controller card.

Diablo2K

Diablo2K

Supreme [H]ardness
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Aug 10, 2000
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My system is below. I only have one spare PCI-e slot, it is a x4 slot but I have 3 spare PCI slots. it would be nice to get a card thaat coon go in either slot. I would like at least 2 external PCI-e connectors. Internal ports are optional. Raid also needs to be optional. i looked on newegg and just cant decide which one to get, alot of them are brands i have no idea who they are. I know the chipset is whats important but I dont know much about whats what there either.

I don't plan on useing raid but would still like the option of it, but if I ever do I am sure it would be internal and i have a SB600 south Bridge and it doesn't do raid worth a damn so if i do i would need a expansion card to do it so if the card has internal ports that do raid it would be a plau.
 
You should be aware that regular 32bit PCI has a maximum bandwidth of 127MB/s (binary), while PCIe x1 has 238MB/s (binary) - eSATA add-on cards are usually PCIe x1.

That means that you would have to sacrifice your PCIe x4 slot for using a x1 card. However, I did not see any 2-port eSATA card yet. I have a 1 port PCIe x1 eSATA card with JMicron JMB 360 that is about 10-20% slower than the Silicon Image ones.

My current solution is a bit expensive, but the most versatile: I have a PCIe x1 to ExpressCard adapter. Then I can use the ExpressCard to 2-port eSATA with Silicon Image SiI3132 controller. And of course any other ExpressCard if I need other connections.
 
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