I am using an LSI 1068 SAS PCIe controller. I have 7 drives connected
and am getting excellent performance. Depending on the layout of the
case you can pickup a Supermicro version for less than $100. The issue
is the components are mounted on the reverse side for the Supermicro
UIO slot, so it takes up two bracket slots on a normal PCIe slot.

Ryan

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Eyal Lebedinsky [off-list ref] wrote:

A word of caution. 6 on-board SATA is not always enough. It is often the
case
that using all will hit internal bandwidth limits. I find it common for 4
disks
to be handled OK but 5 are too much.

A simple test of 5 concurrent dd's will tell you if all disks are going full
speed.
Some time one combination of 5 out of 6 (or 8) on-board sockets will perform
better
than other and it is worth checking.

Eyal

Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

quoted

Dexter Filmore [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I want to upgrade server hardware here, currently I have 5 Samsungs (sATA
II) sitting on the onboard controller of an Asus K8N-E Socket754 board.
I guess the controller chips are both connected via PCI hence performance
isn't really hot.

Basically I need either a board with at least 6x sATA-II attached via
PCIe or a "dumb" PCIe 4x or 8x controller card.

Any recommendations?

Dex

Anything that is not pci. PCIe or PCI-X will both be way
faster. Server boards with 6x SATA-II onboard are hard to miss. And
any cheap PCIe/PCI-X controler will probably do.

One important thing to think about is hotplug support. Do you need it
or not?

Look for a board and then check out http://linux-ata.org/ for support.

MfG
       Goswin

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Eyal Lebedinsky (eyal@eyal.emu.id.au)
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