PCIe AHCI controller?

[Asphodelus]

I'm looking for an AHCI controller card with SATA ports that I can boot off of - not necessarily a hardware RAID card, though of course that will work as well, price permitting.

 

[glugglug]

I'm pretty sure every PCIe motherboard has SATA ports you can boot off of, so why would the PCIe card also need to be bootable, unless for RAID?

 

[Asphodelus]

Because I intend to pass the PCH into a VM using VT-d. Obviously that can't be done while the hypervisor itself is running off of the PCH's ports.

 

[aigomorla]

http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Serveraid-.../dp/B0034DMSO6

look for these guys pulled on ebay.... u can usually pick them up for like 110 dollars.

I hear they are hot cakes in freenas, which means it should pass down ports to board.


have u also looked at Dell Perc Controllers?

 

[Asphodelus]

The Dell Perc 6i would be the native solution with full support and drivers, as the system is actually a Dell server. The problem is, I'm not sure what exactly I need - some of listings on eBay are card-only while others include the backup battery and cable, and almost all mention specific server models, which leads me to wonder if the Perc 6i is actually a series of server-specific cards rather than a single PCIe card.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Perc stands for Power Edge RAID Card. It's an LSI controller if I recall correctly. LSI makes disk controllers for lots of different equipment.

If you have a Dell server, look up the information on Dell's site for what card is recommended. It will give you some idea where to go. Use the service tag lookup on support.dell.com

Battery Backup Unit (BBU) is used to enable write-back cache:

http://public.support.unisys.com/pcproducts/esx/docs/delldocs5.4/en/perc6i_6e/chapterb.htm#wp1057338

Check out the BBU section and write through vs. write back caching.

 

[aigomorla]

correct me if im wrong cheez but isnt the 6i not a sata3 card?

the op would require a H310 for Sata3 so he can use 6GB/S bandwith?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Googling brought me here:

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/dell-raid-controllers?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&redirect=1

Very nicely laid out.