We test a PCI SATA controller from ACRyan. Allowing you to connect 2 SATA hard drives to any system that has a free PCI slot. Does it perform better or worse then an onboard solution? We installed it and let you know.
Introduction
Introduction :
Today we take a look at the latest offering from ACRyan. They decided to reach out to the hardware enthusiasts out there and release a PCI SATA Controller. Their offering is powered by a Silicon Image Chip which goes by the model number of 3112. This particular chip supports 2 SATA hard drives.
But the fun doesn't stop there; ACRyan has added an extra SATA connector at the back of the PCI card, meaning that you can hook up your hard drive without having to open your PC Case. The second addition which sets this card apart from the rest is the possibility to connect 2 of your older hard drives to this PCI Hard disk controller (if you use the PATA connector you’ll lose one SATA)
Key features
High-speed 150MB/s (1.5Gbps)
RAID 0 / 1
supports larger than 137GB hard disk
external SATA port
PATA port available
Specifications:
fully compliant with Serial ATA (SATA) 1.0 specification with data rates up to 150MB/s (1.5Gbps)
2 independent SATA channels supporting one SATA device on each channel
ATA channel is shared with SATA channel : 1 SATA + 1 ATA channel when ATA is in use
supports hard disk larger than 137GB
independent 256-byte FIFOs (32bit*64 deep) per Serial ATA channel for host reads and writes compliant with PCI specification 2.2 integrated PCI DMA engines
RAID operating system drivers : Windows98 / Me / NT4.0 / 2000 / XP
RAID 0 (striping) / RAID 1 (mirroring) software included
the complete Package contains:
PCI Combo Card
English manual
driver diskette incl. RAID drivers
1x SATA cable
low and normal profile mounting bracket
Both the addition of the SATA cable and the low profile mounting bracket make this package a very complete offering. You don't need anything else to set everything up, talking of which, let's plug this card in our test system ->
Installation
Installation:
The installation is really straightforward:
Power down your PC
Open up your case
Plug in the PCI card in a free slot
Close your case and power on the system
You're done!
To make life for us, reviewers, a little easier we decided to work in a case-less environment:
Once you power on the system you will see a new screen appear after the usual BIOS messages. By pressing Ctrl+S or F4 during the time the message below is on the screen you will end up in the configuration of the PCI Raid card.
Here you can define your RAID0/RAID1 setup, rebuild an existing RAID1 drive array, check for problems and perform a low level format on one of the hard drives connected to the controller. The menu is very straight forward and easy to use. (If you are looking for more information concerning RAID please take a look here)
Let's see how it performs ->
Performance & Conclusion
System Setup:
The Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB SATA 8MB used was graciously provided by:
When booting up the first time in Windows the new hardware wizard will pop-up and ask you for drivers, the included floppy disk luckily has them ;) so software installation was a breeze!
We used 2 popular benchmarks together with some good old file copying and timing the results. The file copy was done onto the same hard drive.
First up, HDTach:
Next we used Sisoft Sandra 2004 file benchmark:
And finally the file copy (9006 files in 1006Mb // 1 file of 700mb):
Conclusion:
As shown in the results above, this PCI SATA Card is not only on PAR with the onboard SATA controller, it even manages to outperform it in some tests. For those of us looking to buy a new future proof hard drive, this PCI card can already *upgrade* your system to support it. If you already have a SATA-capable motherboard and you are looking to expand the amount of SATA channels without losing performance, look no further!
I would like to thank Nick from NYGL.com and Joey from ACRyan.com for making this review possible.
