Recommend a PCIe eSATA Card/Controller

[YellowSnow]

It's for a new HP Proliant ML350 G6 Tower Server.

I'm thinking of trying something like this.

 

[YellowSnow]

Got a couple quotes from CDW.

StarTech.com 2 Port PCI Express eSATA Controller Adapter Card

Lacie eSATA PCI Express Card

Opinions?

Edit:

Hotswap capability is a must.

 

[BecauseScience]

I've had this combo running since Christmas. Hotplug works great under Linux. I've put a few TB through it. I haven't had a corrupt file yet. All copies were followed by verification.

PCI Express Serial ATA II (SATA II) Card, 2x External Port (e-SATA), SiI3132 Chipset
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=3581&seq=1&format=2

6ft SATA External Round Cable - eSATA to eSATA (Type I to Type I), Black
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10226&cs_id=1022603&p_id=3940&seq=1&format=2

Thermaltake Sata HDD USB Docking Station
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-S...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1265853925&sr=8-1

 

[[-erick-]]

I've had this combo running since Christmas. Hotplug works great under Linux. I've put a few TB through it. I haven't had a corrupt file yet. All copies were followed by verification.

PCI Express Serial ATA II (SATA II) Card, 2x External Port (e-SATA), SiI3132 Chipset
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=3581&seq=1&format=2

6ft SATA External Round Cable - eSATA to eSATA (Type I to Type I), Black
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10226&cs_id=1022603&p_id=3940&seq=1&format=2

Thermaltake Sata HDD USB Docking Station
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-S...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1265853925&sr=8-1

I got a TT BlacX for almost a year now. Its better than the veris-mx1 (i plugged a 1tb) and it corrupted the mft.

 

[Old Hippie]

The card in your first link also has an IDE port....do you need that?

What is it you wanna do?

These cheapo cards are all about the same with maybe the only difference being the manfg of the chipset.

Pay your money and make a choice....they're all about the same.

 

[YellowSnow]

I don't need IDE. That card was just the one with the best ratings on Newegg that would acomplish my goal. But none of the ratings on these cards is great.

What I want to do is to be able to backup to one of eight 500GB SATAII drives every night. I want SATA 300 speeds for these backups (and potential restores). And I don't want to have to shut down the server to safely swap these hard drives.

The onboard SATA ports act strange when using them for this purpose through this or when connected directly. Transfers speeds are sporatic and Hotswap! doesn't always work with them. HP says the onboard SATA ports are designed for optical drives only.

I want a solid solution and am willing to pay up to $100 for it.

I already have this:

External Enclosure for naked SATA HDD

 

[YellowSnow]

I'm thinking of getting this: http://www.buy.com/prod/belkin-sata...-pin-sata-serial-ata/q/loc/101/202188826.html

It's on the Hotswap! compatibility list and I also read a post that indicated someone had good luck with a Belkin eSATA card with their HP server.

It seems adding a RAID or HBA card can screw up boot order on these Servers. Great.

 

[YellowSnow]

I'm running Server 2003 with all the latest updates BTW.

 

[YellowSnow]

Thoughts on this package?

Mark: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_enclosures/232uesr.asp
Mark: with this:
Mark: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_raid_controllers/esatapcie2.asp
Mark: extra trays:
Mark: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/search.asp?keyword=SR-BPU-SATATRY+

I'm thinking I need to keep these drives in trays to protect them.

 

[Old Hippie]

If you already have this external enclosure you probably wouldn't want that Belkin card with no external ports.

If I saw a positive review of a particular card that worked well with my specific situation, I'd probably lean toward purchasing that brand.

If you want to hotswap internal HD trays look at something like this.

 

[YellowSnow]

I have an adapter that translates SATA to eSATA.

The external enclosure I bought seems cheap and the drives get stuck in it. Also, I'm thinking I should really keep these drives in trays so that they are protected from kinetic and static electric damage.

 

[Old Hippie]

I have an adapter that translates SATA to eSATA.

The external enclosure I bought seems cheap and the drives get stuck in it. Also, I'm thinking I should really keep these drives in trays so that they are protected from kinetic and static electric damage.

That little adaptor just connects from your onboard SATA ports to eSATA connectors. It doesn't actually change anything to eSATA specs.

Just thought I'd add....SATA and eSATA are the same except for a few negligible specs about signal strength, connector configuration, and external cable shielding.

 

[YellowSnow]

Well since at least one user in the post I linked earlier said that he has 3 of the Belkin controllers in Servers working successfully once he updated to the latest firmware, I think that's my best bet.

His link is dead and I couldn't find the page on The Wayback Machine, but through searching for Belkin SATA 406120, I think it must have been a link to this card.

Any thoughts on the naked drives? I think I'm just going to risk it and be careful. I already bought hard cases for transporting naked SATA drives from ThinkGeek. I'll try to work with what I have and the Belkin card and see how it pans out. Sound good?

 

[YellowSnow]

That little adaptor just connects from your onboard SATA ports to eSATA connectors. It doesn't actually change anything to eSATA specs.

Yah, I'm glad to be bypassing it completely with a PCIe card.

 

[Old Hippie]

I'll try to work with what I have and the Belkin card and see how it pans out. Sound good?

I would consider that the safest bet and probably the same path I would have taken.

I Googled a little to try and find the controller chip on that Belkin card but lost. My thoughts are that many of these cheapo cards use SI chipsets and if you could find a comparable card in a different brand it may be cheaper.

That particular card has one internal and one external SATA plugs and should do fine in any situation that you encounter.

 

[YellowSnow]

Thanks Old Hippie!

 

[YellowSnow]

What slot should I put it in? They're all open:

 

[Old Hippie]

After intensive study and computations I vote slot 1 but you can use the same formula I did and see what you think.

I used this powerful program.

 

[YellowSnow]

Thanks A LOT!

 

[YellowSnow]

It works! And the little "Safely remove hardware" green arrow in the clock tray even showed up. Before today, I'd only seen that with USB drives. Hooray!

 

[Old Hippie]

It works! And the little "Safely remove hardware" green arrow in the clock tray even showed up. Before today, I'd only seen that with USB drives. Hooray!

Cool!

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[YellowSnow]

The only odd part is that the Safely Remove Hardware applet acts slightly different than what I'm used to on XP. It never delivers the popup indicating that it's safe to remove the hardware or that it could not be stopped. However it's possible to deduce these two situations because the green arrow disapears if the there is no current access to the drive, but it won't if I have the drive open in Explorer. Is this typical behavior for Server 2003 or something?

 

[swarris]

I'm looking for the exact same solution on my HP ML350 G6 server however mine is a Windows 2008 SBS. Before seeing this post I tried the StarTech 2port PCI Express eSata and it blue screened my Server and wouldn't boot until I removed the controller and made a jumper change on the system board so it would redetect the onboard hardware. Luckly I was able to get the server back up and running with out data lose but I still need to find a card that will work in this server. Did you do anything special to the server prior to installing it into Slot 1 ?? Other than rolling the Dice .. Thanks...

 

[YellowSnow]

I'm looking for the exact same solution on my HP ML350 G6 server however mine is a Windows 2008 SBS. Before seeing this post I tried the StarTech 2port PCI Express eSata and it blue screened my Server and wouldn't boot until I removed the controller and made a jumper change on the system board so it would redetect the onboard hardware. Luckly I was able to get the server back up and running with out data lose but I still need to find a card that will work in this server. Did you do anything special to the server prior to installing it into Slot 1 ?? Other than rolling the Dice .. Thanks...

Sorry for the late reply. I just saw this now.

I actually had an issue with the Belkin card. I can't remember what it was, now, but it was a deal breaker. I don't think it was BSOD's but either a performance or "Safely Remove Hardware" issue.

I ended up trying the super cheap card from Monoprice.com thanks to this post earlier in this thread:

I've had this combo running since Christmas. Hotplug works great under Linux. I've put a few TB through it. I haven't had a corrupt file yet. All copies were followed by verification.

PCI Express Serial ATA II (SATA II) Card, 2x External Port (e-SATA), SiI3132 Chipset
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=3581&seq=1&format=2

6ft SATA External Round Cable - eSATA to eSATA (Type I to Type I), Black
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10226&cs_id=1022603&p_id=3940&seq=1&format=2

Thermaltake Sata HDD USB Docking Station
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-S...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1265853925&sr=8-1

I'm still using it to this day. We back up about 600GB every night to one of 8 Hitachi 3.5" internal SATA drives every night via eSATA through the Monoprice card and into an external drive enclosure housing one of the Hitachi HDD's.

I use the HotSwap! program to safely remove it without shutting down the server. Unfortunately it won't always work and I get a popup indicating that a program is accessing the drive or that the device required a reboot. So every few days, I have to shutdown the server in order to safely swap the HDD in the enclosure.

I'd love a solution to this issue, but I can't find an alternative to HotSwap! and the green arrow from Windows to Safely Remove Hardware doesn't appear. I wonder if upgrading to Server 2008 would change that.