[geeks] Anyone use this SATA controller in a PC

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com>
>Date: 2008/03/08 Sat PM 01:03:07 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Anyone use this SATA controller in a PC

>Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Another card that looks interesting (since it is only $30 ;^) is this
>> one:
>> 
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013
>> 
>> 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)?
>> 
>> I did stumble across this link over at sun.com:
>> 
>> http://blogs.sun.com/PlasticPixel/entry/build_your_own_multi_terabyte
>> 
>> 
>> Where the fellows ZFS server uses similar SiI3114 chipset SATA card:
>> 
>> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020
>> 
>> (I like the ROsewill card because the two external eSATA ports add to
>> the flexibility of the card in other applications)
>> 
>> Any advice apprecated...
>
>I can almost guarantee that any Silicon Image card will work better than 
>any Promise card.
>
>Check Newegg.  You actually have a few reasonable choices in this arena.

I'm leaning towards the cheaper ($30) SiI3114-based card, I've seen reports on the chipset being supported in Solaris pretty well, and my need is more for playing than anything else. My main thought is I don't want to spend too much on the PowerEdge server, while it has 3 Gig of RAM, 8x 36 Gig SCSI, and dual 1 GHz PII Xeons, it won't be on that often after I configure it, since it consumes much power (3x 350 Watt power supplies). Though it is on wheels!

I may just drop a Gigabit Ethernet card in the machine and spend my time playing with the SCSI drives instead... I can always jump up to SATA for larger storage options at a later date.

Lionel