john said:
I need to hook up a couple of large drives for video editing. Is there a no
frills sata controller with 4 internal ports?
I checked newegg but nothing stands out particularly. One of the promise
card with 4 ports is $60 but does not pass smart info.
This four port card uses Marvell 88SX7042, I don't see any frills,
and the card manufacturer isn't one of my favorites either. $99.
The jumpers are used to select 4 of 6 ports. As shipped, likely
the four internal ports will be enabled. (What I'm saying here,
is the chip itself only supports four ports, and yet six ports
are physically present on the PCB. Jumpers are used to switch between
using two internal connectors or the two external connectors.)
Uses a PCI Express x4 or larger slot, so won't fit in a
PCI Express x1 slot.
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/16-132-018-14.jpg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018
If you're happy with a lower bandwidth offering, then a PCI
card with a SIL3114 is cheap and cheerful. The 32 bit PCI
bus is the limiting factor in that case (about 110-120MB/sec
max, so burst speed isn't much higher than sustained head
rate). SIL3114 cards come in RAID or non-RAID mode, and if
the right brand of firmware chip is onboard, they can be
flash upgraded to change the card from one role to the other.
You probably won't get much cheaper than a SIL3114 - the reviews
aren't always the best with SIL3112/SIL3114, and I don't know
exactly why. This one from Masscool, appears to have some
mechanical design issues, and also the EEPROM is covered so
we cannot see whether it is a PMC or not. Syba used to make
a card with SIL3114 as well, which might be a better choice,
if only because the card would fit the slot.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280003
There is a Syba here, and you may be able to flash this to
non-RAID from the default RAID EEPROM contents.
http://www.ncixus.com/products/19892/PCI-3114-4IR-01/Syba/
You didn't say RAID in your title, so I'll stop there.
Paul
