PCIe SATA controller cards: Performance?

Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
10,547
6
81
So I got one of the new Gigabyte Sandy Bridge boards. It has two SATA III ports and the rest are SATA II. Problem is, I have three hard drives and an optical drive.

I do have a free PCIe 4x slot. Do the SATA ports on PCIe SATA cards have slower / lower performance than the SATA ports built right into the motherboard?

I'm considering purchasing this card:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=lGYmelQ8mJvPtYTv
 

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
6,799
1,103
126
According to spec, the Intel 160GB G2 read speed = 250 MB/s = 2 Gb/s, still slower than SATA II 3Gb/s.

You don't need to buy a controller to use all your drives.

===

One PCIe 2.0 lane = 500MB/s = 4Gb/s, can handle a RAID 0 setup of your Intel 160GB G2 drives (250MB x 2, if you have 2)

Bandwidth comparison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates
 
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Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
10,547
6
81
I just don't want to use the SATA II ports on my motherboard. Will this card work fine then for my drives? I plan on picking up two OCZ Vertex 2s as well.
 

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
6,799
1,103
126
No reason it won't. Each channel handles up to 6Gb/s =750MB/s according to ASUS.

OCZ Vertex 2s spec = 285MB/s

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Read the Newegg feedbacks before you jump in, seems quite a few people have difficulty making the controller work with Win7/x64.
 
Last edited:

Zargon

Lifer
Nov 3, 2009
12,218
2
76
According to spec, the Intel 160GB G2 read speed = 250 MB/s = 2 Gb/s, still slower than SATA II 3Gb/s.

You don't need to buy a controller to use all your drives.

===

One PCIe 2.0 lane = 500MB/s = 4Gb/s, can handle a RAID 0 setup of your Intel 160GB G2 drives (250MB x 2, if you have 2)

Bandwidth comparison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates

there is a flaw in the sataII chipset on Sandy Bridge. thats why hes asking