From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Sven Eschenberg" Subject: Re: [Slightly OT] Cheap 4-port PCI-E SATA card? Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 18:02:51 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <1625d1dff8a739c00a1b1738d98b9c31.squirrel@ssl.verfeiert.org> References: <4D20E9F7.2080800@anonymous.org.uk> <20110103033100.40a80113@natsu> <4D21E726.7070306@anonymous.org.uk> Reply-To: sven@whgl.uni-frankfurt.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: In-Reply-To: <4D21E726.7070306@anonymous.org.uk> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: John Robinson Cc: Linux RAID List-Id: linux-raid.ids http://skinflint.co.uk/eu/a367722.html I got one of those, still a little too expensive imho, but it does it's job as expected. In-kernel drivers seem to work well till now (used several 2.6.33.x and following kernel versions without any problems so far). Does have PCI-e x4 thus providing more bandwidth that the 4 connected drives can achieve and should support FIS PMPs aswell. lspci agrees on this: LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x4, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-. /dev/md127: Timing O_DIRECT cached reads: 888 MB in 2.00 seconds =3D 443.38 MB/= sec Timing O_DIRECT disk reads: 602 MB in 3.00 seconds =3D 200.40 MB/sec Since I use a raid 6 setup on the four drives and reading from each mem= ber drive's cache yiels roughly 220MB/sec the value of 440 MB/sec seems reasonable. I don't have the chance right now to set up a stripeset of = 4 drives to check if I could get around 800MB from their caches, but I di= d achieve roughly 450 MB/sec from a SSD stripe I had connected. So I cann= ot tell you what the upper limit of the card/chipset is there, but I found the rates fair enough for my needs. I couldn't find any UK Reseller for an equivalent board at a similiar l= ow price (unfortunately) - misco UK does have the following: http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3D= 399329&Tab=3D2&NoMapp=3D0 Which is definately too expensive ... maybe you got better luck digging for a card+reseller with that chipset. Regards -Sven On Mon, January 3, 2011 16:11, John Robinson wrote: > On 02/01/2011 22:31, Roman Mamedov wrote: >> On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:11:19 +0000 >> John Robinson wrote: >> >>> Please could someone suggest a cheap PCI-E SATA card with 4 interna= l >>> ports? >> >> "Marvell 88SE6445 Raid 0,1,5,10 and JBOD", $60 at eBay: >> http://ur1.ca/2qa3t > > In the UK the best I've found is the Highpoint 2640x1 at =A392 ex del= ivery > and taxes, which at current exchange rates is $142. I'm slightly > reluctant to buy a no-brand item direct from China. > >> "LSI SAS3041E-R 4-Port SAS/SATA Host Bus Adapter", $73 at DX: >> http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.51317 > > =A3113 or $174 is the best I can find in the UK. I wonder if they shi= p > internationally... their $73 is =A348... > >> Or if you meant 'cheap' as in $20-30 cheap, then there's no such (4-= Port >> PCI-E) >> thing, but you can easily get not one, but two 2-Port PCI-E x1 board= s >> for that >> price. If you go that route, make sure you get the JMB363 chip, unli= ke >> SiI3132 >> it has not been spotted having any data corruption issues AFAIK. > > Well, there are 4-port PCI cards in the =A317-25 cheap range, so I ha= d > hoped there would be 4-port PCI-E cards in the =A335-50 range, which = is > the ballpark for basic cheap motherboards with 4-6 SATA ports on them= , > but it's not generally true. > > Anyway thanks for the help, I shall chase up DX and think on... > > Cheers, > > John. > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid"= in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" i= n the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html