PCIe to SATA host controller cards: Why only 2-port on lower costcards?

[Hench]

Specifically, PCIe 2.0 to SATA 600 mb/sec (III) cards.

Around the Toronto area I can only find these cards with 2 internal SATA
ports. many cards come with an additional 2 external eSata or USB ports
but always 2 internal ports. Prices are $20 to $30.

I have to pay over $100 to get 4 internal Sata 600 ports on the
controller card and many of those are actually Sata 300.


Anybody shed any info on this matter?

 

[Flasherly]

Specifically, PCIe 2.0 to SATA 600 mb/sec (III) cards.

Around the Toronto area I can only find these cards with 2 internal SATA
ports. many cards come with an additional 2 external eSata or USB ports
but always 2 internal ports. Prices are $20 to $30.

I have to pay over $100 to get 4 internal Sata 600 ports on the
controller card and many of those are actually Sata 300.

Anybody shed any info on this matter?

Better than nothing, although I'm not overly impressed with the after
market in these boards. Prices, as you notice, can vary widely, also
to say I'm at that $20 range. Seriously, I've bought good MBs on
unusual sales within the past couple years for that or less. What
specifically upsets my apple cart is when I buy a board like that to
put in a old MB that deals better with newer/larger hard drives than
do some of these boards that are 3 or 5 years newer. On a decent
budget MB, say around $50, it becomes increasingly viable to consider
one firsthand for 4 or 6 SATA ports, rather than get into it later
with an after-market solution. With my SATA boards, believe it
wouldn't deal with a 2T drive, not without flash updates either/or for
both HD and board, whereas a 1.5T did take, or so I thought. I've
tried a couple different defraggers, but there's something screwy
going on...taking way too long. Would help if I had it hooked up for
a light to verify what looks to be delayed/stalled accesses. I may
try and can get the MB to boot through it, see if the problem is
addressed with an ancient/small drive they seem to like best, then
verify it's a problem the MB hasn't, last to let the MB handle both
larger drives. ...May try the flash angle and update them if I can't
swap things easily around for a kludged fix. Looks like another nite
with just me and a card table and a computer on it. Maybe I'll win.

 

[Paul]

Specifically, PCIe 2.0 to SATA 600 mb/sec (III) cards.

Around the Toronto area I can only find these cards with 2 internal SATA
ports. many cards come with an additional 2 external eSata or USB ports
but always 2 internal ports. Prices are $20 to $30.

I have to pay over $100 to get 4 internal Sata 600 ports on the
controller card and many of those are actually Sata 300.


Anybody shed any info on this matter?

The price is what the market will bear.

The chip price can be a factor as well. The chip manufacturer
might be charging a premium for a high port count, making
it harder to find a card for a decent price.

This company makes a wide range of storage solutions.
A lot of the cards will have a rich feature set, so they
can charge more for them (or try to justify the high price).
But I can still pick out two cards that are fairly simple.

http://www.addonics.com/category/sata_controllers.php

This 8 port card is $185. They complicated things, by not using
SATA connectors right on the card. The connector they use, might
have made it easier to connect to a storage backplane (something
you might use in a server). If the card dimensions were changed so
the card could use simple connectors (make the card longer), perhaps
that would have prevented sales into their target market. It could
be they figure the cards would be used in server computers.

http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2ms6gpx8.php

The 4 port card is $55 (plus any adapters needed). There is a
benchmark on the page, in case the Marvell chip is a bottleneck.
At least one of the early Marvell chips, couldn't go flat
out (for unknown reasons). I assume it's Marvell, because
I don't think Silicon Image is really moving in that
direction. And Jmicron doesn't seem to do a lot of ports
on a chip either. At the 8 port level at least, Marvell
might be about the only option.

http://www.addonics.com/products/adms6gpx2.php

*******

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvell_Technology_Group_chipsets

Page 21 on this page, shows some newer ones.

http://www.marvell.com/guide/assets/data/marvell_psg.pdf

88RC9580 8 port 8 watts 676-FCBGA

The high ball count on the IC package (676 balls) helps ensure
the chip will not be cheap. A certain well-known company charges
$300 for specialized chips of that size, but a lot of other companies
do them for a lot less. Frequently, packages of this size contribute
more to the asking price, than the size of the silicon die inside.

The 8 watt power dissipation, might also account for the small
40mm fan on the cards. I guess that costs less, than using a
slab of aluminum with fins for a cooler.

*******

You could try buying directly from Addonics, just for fun. Just
to see how long it takes to get to you.

Paul

 

[Hench]

The price is what the market will bear.

Yeah I read the links you provided and came to the same conclusion that
it's a marvel chipset price issue.

Unless they have a market to up the volume of manufacturing on a chipset
that can do 4 Sata 6Gb/sec there is no need to offer those chipsets
affordable/lower-end for a home user.

They do seem secretive about it though