SATA III PCI-E card - any good?

It's only pci1x so not going to be the fastest if you want to use both ports. Depends what you want to use it for, I've got a 1x startech card (recommend it by the way and won't break the bank ) in my Microserver for my backup DASes.
 
Ah, I hadn't realised it was the slowest PCI-E version - too busy looking at the price :).

I'm thinking of using it to connect another SSD. (The only free PCI-E slot on my board is a 2.0 x1).

Which Startech have you got? (Their PEXSAT32 might be ok for an SSD? Or perhaps the Syba SY-PEX40039)


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If it's for SSD, you want a fast one I would of thought.
 
Your mobo will be the limit - assuming you have a graphics card in thge PCI-ex16 - as you only have PCI-e x 1 expansion slots. I'd be looking to mount the SSD onto one of the SATA III ports on the motherboard (there are generally at least two) and moving any non-speed critical disks to a plugin card. Given you only have PCIe x 1, any card will probably do for that. Is it possible to move disks around to free one of the SATA III ports on the mobo?
 
I've got one more SATA drive than the mobo has SATA ports - hence the reason for getting an expansion card. Two of the drives are SSDs and they're already running off mobo ports - but since all of the HDDs are SATA III, I thought it wise to get the fastest PCI-e expansion card that the mobo will support. Does this make sense?

(Btw, yes - the graphics card is in the PCI-e x16 slot)
 
So, in total, you will have 3 SSD drives - right? HDDs with SATAIII are marketing more than anything else - HDDs can't saturate SATAII let alone SATA III. Which motherboard do you have and which SSDs (and why a third?)
 
So will the SSD you are looking at buying be the second or third SSD in the system?
 
I've already bought it - so it's now the second SSD in the system. It's got more capacity than the existing (first) SSD so I've put Windows & progs onto it. The first one is now Photoshop scratch.
 
Sol put the two SSds on the SATAIII ports on the motherboard and then drop the HDD with least throughput requirement onto the PCI-e addin card. Not sure how good the cheapo cards are for performance - so always put the slowest thing on them.
 
arad85 said:
Sol put the two SSds on the SATAIII ports on the motherboard and then drop the HDD with least throughput requirement onto the PCI-e addin card.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what I'm planning to do.

arad85 said:
Not sure how good the cheapo cards are for performance - so always put the slowest thing on them.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how good they are either. What do you think of the two cards I linked to in post 3?
 
I'd google thc controller chipsets and see what others are saying (sm1061 vs marvell 9128)
 
Ozei said:
Which Startech have you got? (Their PEXSAT32 might be ok for an SSD? Or perhaps the Syba SY-PEX40039)
Click to expand...

mine is the PEXESAT32 (Marvell 88SE9123 based) by the way.

quick unscientific test in windows a copy from my (mechanical) RAID5 eSata DAS through the card onto the Microservers RAID0 levelled out at 136MB/s.

whether it would be any good for SSD I cannot tell you. PCI 1x is rated as follows (Wiki rip):

PCI Express 1.0a
In 2003, PCI-SIG introduced PCIe 1.0a, with a per-lane data rate of 250 MB/s and a transfer rate of 2.5 gigatransfers per second (GT/s).
 
arad85 said:
I'd google thc controller chipsets and see what others are saying (sm1061 vs marvell 9128)
Click to expand...

I'll do that - thanks Andy.

neil_g said:
mine is the PEXESAT32 (Marvell 88SE9123 based) by the way .............. whether it would be any good for SSD I cannot tell you. PCI 1x is rated as follows (Wiki rip):

PCI Express 1.0a
In 2003, PCI-SIG introduced PCIe 1.0a, with a per-lane data rate of 250 MB/s and a transfer rate of 2.5 gigatransfers per second (GT/s).
Click to expand...

I'm not intending to use it for SSDs (posts 11 & 12) - only for a SATA III HDD. 250MB/s is fast enough for an HDD isn't it (provided I only connect one)?
 
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Ozei said:
250MB/s is fast enough for an HDD isn't it (provided I only connect one)?
Click to expand...
Yes. It is close to being able to handle 2 HDDs at 250MB/s... (120ish MB/s per disk read performance - or it was last time I checked)
 
Ok, I'll go for that one then. Thanks to you & Neil for all the advice.
 
arad85 said:
I'd google thc controller chipsets and see what others are saying (sm1061 vs marvell 9128)
Click to expand...

Plan B.

According to this, the ASM1061 is a tad faster than the Marvell 88SE9128 - so I've ordered the Syba SY-PEX40039 (which is a few quid cheaper than the Startech PEXSAT3).

Syba / Startech
 
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Ozei said:
Plan B.
Click to expand...
Gotta love the Internet. The information you need is always out there - it just depends on whether you can find it or not :D
 
What are you actually hoping to experience a performance improvement in?

The main gain from SSDs is from the reduction in random access times - the number of real world scenarios where you'll actually get anywhere close to the peak read or write speeds of the drive are pretty small. Using third-party controllers will often slow boot times as well as the Option ROM for the card will have to be loaded before handing off to the OS bootloader.
 
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