Adding SATA PCI card to really old motherboard?

[wilburpan]

I have a Pentium III based computer with an Abit BE6-II motherboard that is used as a fileserver running Linux. I would like to add a big hard drive to it, but I'm being mindful that the components in this computer are 7 years old.

As I see it, I've got two choices:

1. Get a 500 GB PATA drive.

2. Get a 500 GB-1 TB SATA drive and a SATA PCI controller.

The reason I'm considering the second option is that should my motherboard finally give up the ghost, I'll be able to use the SATA drive in a new computer. Plus, PATA drives top out at 500 GB.

What I am concerned about is whether the SATA PCI card will be compatible with a motherboard this old. I've read that some SATA controllers have limited compatibility with motherboards, and of course the manufacturer doesn't have real info on compatibility with a motherboard that is so old.

The other concern specific to my motherboard is that Abit put a Highpoint PATA (software) RAID controller on this motherboard, which was the workaround for getting past the 137 MB hard drive issue back in the day. I don't know if this will interfere with adding an SATA controller.

Has anyone successfully added a SATA controller to a really old motherboard?

 

[lopri]

Well, if the board and controller card conform to PCI specifics (which is industry standard), they should work fine. (of course in theory) I would try the 2nd option, although I can not truly testify WRT 6-year old boards.

 

[dearmisterleggett]

It will work fine. Have an SATA PCI card in an old machine with a Duron 700.

 

[Peter]

3. Get a SATA drive and an IDE-SATA converter, then hook the latter to the Highpoint controller.

Point being that, since you already have an "expansion" type storage controller onboard, when you add another, these two might step on each other's toes. By using what's already there, you won't run into such firmware/software issues (which would be impossible to fix).

 

[alaricljs]

Until recently I was running some old 1Ghz Athlon system with 2 PCI-X SATA controllers installed to the PCI slots. I upgraded the motherboard but that's another story. Yes, it ran/runs Linux.

There was no issue with the controllers functioning, and there is no reason to expect issues from the HPT controller if you install an additional controller.

Another thing you might consider is where you think you'll go with your file server. I knew I was going to have a fileserver for a long time and that it would need more performance and more storage over time. I spent ~$550 building a new system (without disks) with Core 2 support, 4GB ram, 4 PCI-X slots, and dual Gigabit LAN. There's even an x4 and an x8 PCIe slot. I'm running 2TB of storage right now, some RAID1 some JBOD. I went with a cheap $30 775 Celeron for now, and will upgrade to a nice quad core when either the price hits bottom or I need more CPU.

If you're interested in aiming yourself in this direction I am selling some PCI-X Sata controllers in the For Sale Forum. The 4 port cards have production level drivers in Linux. The 8 port cards have working drivers minus a couple features. They're PCI backward compatible and being PCI-X will help them retain resale value if you end up wanting to get rid of them in the future.

 

[Peter]

Problems arise, particularly in old systems, when they're running out of PCI expansion ROM space. You may or may not be able to suppress the boot ROM for the onboard Highpoint, which is something you may need to do to get your PCI card bootable.

Other than this, yes of course, one can pile up as many storage controller as one likes.

 

[alaricljs]

Hmm, boot ROMs.. indeed. I always have a boot drive on the primary controller of the mobo so this slipped my mind.

 

[wilburpan]

I have been going back and forth over the issue of whether to upgrade the whole computer or not. I have to replace another desktop that we use as our real computer, so that's why I'm trying to get along with just upgrading the hard drive in my fileserver. It's mainly used as a way to backup data, so it doesn't need huge gobs of computing power.

 

[wilburpan]

Stupid double post.

 

[wilburpan]

The way my system is set up is that Linux (Gentoo Linux) is set up on a smallish hard drive, and my /home folder, where all my data is, is on a separate hard drive. The drive I plan to add will take the place of the /home folder drive.

 

[alaricljs]

Ok, so basically whatever simple SATA controller you get should be adequate for your current needs. Although I highly recommend hitting up the linux ata driver site and checking driver support for whatever chipset you might like to get.

Other than that Linux will plop it into your system as /dev/sda and you'll be set with storage. Seeing as how it's for a way to backup your data you might spring for a 2nd drive and use md to mirror them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you are looking to backup Windows' client systems, you might want to look at using WHS (Windows Home Server). It has some neat features.

As far as controller cards go, I'm using a couple of 4-port PCI SATA controllers from Syba, they have the SI 3114 chipset onboard. That's a fairly common chipset with decent support.

However, using it in RAID mode is giving me some problems - for some reason, one of my drives is constantly dropping out of the RAID array.

 

[chucky2]

x2 on the Syba Silicon Image cards.

Had one that worked fine (retired system) in a Super-7 board system I was running.

One word of caution: DO NOT flash the BIOS from SI to the Syba cards. I got away with it once, then tried again maybe a year later and it toasted the card. Ordered another 2 cards since they were so cheap, tried the flashing again, killed another card.

Put the 3rd one in and called it a day.

Chuck

 

[VirtualLarry]

For the 3114 cards, I've had no problem flashing the newest BIOS from SI onto the cards. In fact, you have to. I had boot problems before flashing.

If you killed a card by flashing, then it must have been a different card, and it likely didn't have a flash bios, only an eeprom. flashing those cards will kill them.

 

[wilburpan]

As it turned out, PCI compatibility turned out to be the bugaboo that I couldn't get over for this issue. My motherboard is old enough that it had conformity to PCI 2.1, but only if I set it in the BIOS because the PCI 2.1 standard was so new at the time. It appears that all the SATA cards I could find information on required PCI 2.3 at least, probably due to the cards running on 3.3 V.

Anyway, I took this as a sign that I should just upgrade the whole computer. New CPU, motherboard, and RAM, and I was in business. And yes, I did get a 750 GB SATA drive.

Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[Peter]

I've never seen a 32-bit PCI card that was 3.3V ONLY.

There are no relevant changes from PCI 2.1 to 2.3 that would keep you from using such a SATA card. All current PCI chips are 3.3V, yes, but the vast majority are still "5V tolerant".

You can see that from the notches in the card edge. The one nearer to the bracket is there if the card can run on 3.3V, the one toward the back indicates 5V compatible.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: Peter
I've never seen a 32-bit PCI card that was 3.3V ONLY.

There are no relevant changes from PCI 2.1 to 2.3 that would keep you from using such a SATA card. All current PCI chips are 3.3V, yes, but the vast majority are still "5V tolerant".

You can see that from the notches in the card edge. The one nearer to the bracket is there if the card can run on 3.3V, the one toward the back indicates 5V compatible.

I agree. The Super-7 system I was running was only PCI 2.1, and the Syba card worked fine in it.

Chuck

 

[wilburpan]

The above comments are all well and good, but they don't change the fact that my old motherboard would not recognize the SATA card I tried.

 

[Peter]

Did it fail to find the SATA /chip/ or did it just not invoke the SATA /boot ROM/? If the latter, then please see above

 

[wilburpan]

Several attempts to find the SATA card using various Linux LiveCDs (Gentoo, Ubuntu, Knoppix) failed to find the card. lspci gave me a big fat zero every time.

 

[Peter]

That is indeed strange.