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PCI vs PCI-X SATAII controller

R

roberttran

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Messages
1,471
Hey,
I would like to install SATA into my current computer which only has ATA100 and ATA133.
I have 2 PCI-X slots and 1 PCI slot free. I've found some PCI and PCI-X SATAII controllers but the PCI-X controllers are more expensive. Would there be any difference in performance? I would think the PCI-X would be faster, but not sure by how much.

Thanks,
Robert
 
pci-x is significantly faster and the options for controllers are much better for it than normal pci. It does depend on how extensive of an array you are planning. If its just a small thing then pci is ok, but anything interesting should be on pci-x.

If you just want to add sata capabilities to your existing system then just pop in a pci sata card, again, unless you are in need of best in class performance.
 
If you're running one or two drives, maybe three, pci should be enough under heavy drive load. If you plan on running more drives than that, pci will be a very large hinderance under load. You will want pci-x if you're going beyond 4 or more pci-x will make a huge difference in available bandwidth to the card.
 
Great! thanks for the info. I just want to replace all my ATA drives with SATA at the moment. The only drive intensive thing I can forsee doing is video editing and running VMware.

-Robert
 
can someone recommend a SATAII controller? I want it to have at least 4 internal ports. I was looking at the Promise cards around $60 and I also found some cards by Silicon Image that costs $20.
 
Areca 1210 or 1220 i think is the model number. Really nice cards, should be around 200-350 for the 4 port card.
 
If you're running Windows and don't need RAID functionality, the Supermicro card I've got has the advantage of higher pci-x transfer rates. In windows it works as fast as the disks attached to it. I've pushed 180 MB/s, and that was with just 3 disks.

Would there really be a performance difference? Nah, not really. The $20 silimage card will probably do just fine, and if not... well, at least it was only $20 :p
 
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