PCI-E SATA controller vs. onboard

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fuelvolts

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 24, 2005
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I have a crappy mobo (the free ECS 6100-sm mobo that Fry's hands out with their AMD CPU/mobo deals). It only has 2 SATA ports onboard (not sure of the chipset, but it is SATA-II).

So here is my setup:
  • Onboard SATA port 1: 160 GB WD Boot HD (although Vista insisted on putting the boot info on my ide HD, which is a pain)
  • Onboard SATA port 2: 250 GB Seagate 7200.10 storing music/tv
  • PCI-E SATA port 1: 100GB cheap WD storing pictures and setup/drivers
  • Onboard IDE: 250 WD HD to back it all up

The PCI-E controller card I bought is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280009
The card has 2 SATA-II ports and 1 IDE port. Right now, I only have the 100GB HD on the card (only needed more SATA ports).

Now, is this faster than the onboard? Should I move my backup to the card's IDE slot and my music drive to the other free SATA port on the controller card?

Thanks in advance and sorry if this is confusing.
 
It shouldnt be faster than onboard, it might alleviate some of the CPU overhead, but I doubt that you would notice the difference, as SATA2 speeds cant saturate the available 3gbps bandwidth.
 
If there is a theoretical difference, you'll never notice it.

Sounds good the way it sits.

Good Luck!
 
I setup my Seagate 7200.10 SATA-II hard drive on the PCI-E board. I tested before and after with HDTach. Versus the onboard controller, I lowered my burst from 266 to 190 MB/sec which is a bummer, but I upped my avg. transfer speed from 62 to 68 MB/sec, which I think is more important. Also, CPU utilization went from 9% onboard to 6% with the card.

Oh well, I only bought it for the extra ports anyway. I guess it was worth the ~$17 I paid (thanks newegg).
 
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