SATA problem

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 02:58:05AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> What documentation did you use?
> 
> I've heard, but I don't know from where, to avoid VIA.  Maybe Lennart.
> Maybe that was about firewire.

Actually they are OK for firewire.  They do seem to have some SATA
issues though.

> Here's a useful resource:
> <https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features>
> But maybe that is what you found to be out of date.
> 
> Decent SATA controllers use PCIe because PCI isn't fast enough.
> Cheap PCI controllers are usually 150 MB/s, not "SATA 2.0".
> Sata I / 150 MB/s is probably fine for most applications
> 
> There are features you may want.  These may include:
> 
> - Port Multiplier support (yesterday I wanted to buy a cheap JBOD box for my
>   Acer Revo but found that the ION SATA controller doesn't support
>   Port Multiplication)
> 
> - hot plugging
> 
> - AHCI
> 
> - eSATA
> 
> What I've used on a PCI bus were inexpensive cards based on Silicon
> Image chips.

Yep.  VIA and Sil are about the only ones that are PCI.  JMC and others
that are AHCI are all PCIe it seems.  I have used a number of JMC363
cards so far, and they work great.

> - one was from Canada Computers (actually XpressCanada.com, their slightly 
>   cheaper mail-order arm):
> 	<http://canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=19_252_254&item_id=008587>
> 
> - One was from NewEgg (now out of stock)
>   <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132007>

-- 
Len Sorensen
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