On Aug 21, 2010, at 9:32 PM, Dan wrote:
SeriTek 1V4 is SATA I, 1.5 Gbps burst, 150 MB/sec (1.2 Gbps) nominal
on a good day.
This isn't exactly right. Copied below are replies from FirmTek
support about their SeriTek line of SATA I controllers, which would
seem to support SATA II speeds in almost all circumstances where such
speed is available:
Kris Tilford asked FirmTek Support:
Does Firmtek make a SATA II 3.0 Gbps PCI-X card with 2 internal and 2
external ports that boots in a G5 PPC PowerMac?
I own a SeriTek/1VE2+2 which is SATA I 1.5 Gbps and have been happy
with it. I'd like to upgrade to SATA II if possible?
Michael from FirmTek Support replied:
Your existing SeriTek/1VE2+2 will work with both SATA I and SATA II
HDs. The only reason
this card is not classified as a SATA II controller is that it does
not support a seldom-used
Serial ATA feature called SSC which is turned off by default on all
currently selling HD
models.
Kris Tilford responded:
If the SeriTek/1VE2+2 was truly SATA II rather than SATA I,
wouldn't I see an increase going from SATA I to SATA II?
Michael from FirmTek Support replied:
No, That is not the case. If you read SATA II specs it may mislead
you.
The hard drive performance is the sole determining factor for
performance. No single hard
drive can provide high enough performance to show the difference
between a SATA I and a
SATA II interface. To see the difference a 3-4 drive striped RAID
set is required which can
provide 300MB/sec performance.
With a 4-drive RAID set a slow SATA I controller will be limited
to 150MB/sec performance.
The 2+2 card will provide SATA II 250-300MB/sec performance with
four disks in a RAID 0.
The bottom line is the card you have will provide SATA II
performance. However, SSC will
need to be disabled. (Which is the case with all new hard disks,)
The SATA I versus SATA II feature does not allow a HD to go faster
because it is limited to
60-100MB/sec depending on the HD model. However, it will allow a 4-
disk RAID 0 to
perform faster.
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