[geeks] Anyone use this SATA controller in a PC

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Alois Hammer wrote:
>> It has on-board RAID (including hot spare), but it is only SATA "I" (150
>> Mb/sec)... I wonder if it really makes a difference on a system like this
>> (Dual PIII Xeon 1 GHz)?
> 
> Maybe.  A reasonably fast, high-density hard drive can maybe pull...
> what, 30-40MB/s off the platters in a linear read?  Assuming little to
> no fragmentation?  It sort of depends on how many drives you end up
> attaching to the controller.  Allowing for marketeering and protocol
> overhead, you could maybe max out a 150MB/s channel with four or
> possibly five drives, depending on what you do with them.

I think he was planning on using only 3, which would make this point moot.

> ...except that 32-bit, 33MHz PCI tops at (if memory serves) 133MB/s for
> the entire bus.  Presumably, your PowerEdge has got more than one PCI-X
> slot of some flavour (at least 64-bit, 66MHz, at a guess), but you'll
> need a reasonably expensive SATA controller to take advantage of that. 
> I know that NewEgg sells a selection of PCIe RAID controllers, but it's
> been a while since I've seen them sell anything in PCI-X.

They still sell PCI-X gear, and have continuously for a very long time.

> Short answer: you'll never notice a difference between SATA-I and
> SATA-II in this box.

Agreed.

Peace...  Sridhar