Possibly the cheapest bootable sata controller card!!!!

LawlessPPC · #1 03-07-2009, 01:30 PM

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Lycom...Q-PC-MAC-Linux

This uses the sil3132 chipset so is mac compatible. It says its not bootable on mac but no confirmation as to wether its bootable on pc (i think it is via bios option) this would depend on your bios options). What can I say except may get 1 in next few days to see. also it supports sata port multipliers which are dirt cheap also. Could be good for those with bad sata support. Hopefully here comes full sata 2 speed. Any comments would be appreciated

naquaada · #2 03-07-2009, 06:39 PM

The problem with these external SATA controllers is that they pause the boot process for some seconds so you could get into the controller's options.

'Bad SATA support' is not easy to define. Mostly the speed is a problem, and this depends mostly on the the harddisk. I added three xbench screenshots, the Maxtor is IDE with 8 MB cache, the Samsung HD501UJ is SATA with 16 MB cache, the Samsung HD103UJ has 32 MB cache.

But cache and SATA is not everything, I had an Maxtor 7L300 or something like this, ATA-133 and it was much faster, using Tiger and AppleVIAATA.kext.

LawlessPPC · #3 03-08-2009, 02:41 PM

well bad bad sata support or no chipset support i mean no way to get osx on existing motherboard but if this works for a minor spend you can get native support for your drives. Would also be interesting to see if this offers sata burn support also. This controller comes in at spending money prices so its better than replacing a full board plus the fact that its port mutiplier compatible. This company makes one that give 4 port from 1 for just £10. So this gives the extreme option of going from no hardrive support to having 8 devices for £37 roughly. Which i think is pretty cheap and should give as good sata speeds as any device you find in a real mac. Heres hoping it good should find out 2morow

LawlessPPC · #4 03-09-2009, 07:19 PM

ok here are the results so far. A full install took just 5mins from drive to drive and heres the other stats.

This is sb600 chipset (onboard) SATA 1 Drive results

Results 85.40
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G55)
Physical RAM 3072 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type Maxtor 6L160M0 Maxtor 6L160M0
Disk Test 85.40
Sequential 102.13
Uncached Write 94.72 58.16 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 93.74 53.04 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 120.09 35.15 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 104.01 52.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 73.38
Uncached Write 40.37 4.27 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 98.64 31.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 90.36 0.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 117.16 21.74 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Here is SB600 (OnBoard) SATA 2 results

Results 64.35
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G55)
Physical RAM 3072 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WDC WD2500JD-19HBC0 WDC WD2500JD-19HBC0
Disk Test 64.35
Sequential 105.79
Uncached Write 103.69 63.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 102.83 58.18 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 105.23 30.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 111.85 56.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 46.24
Uncached Write 16.81 1.78 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 111.30 35.63 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.13 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 137.09 25.44 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Here is the sil3132 SATA2 Results

Results 69.83
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G55)
Physical RAM 3072 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WDC WD30 00JS-63PDB1
Disk Test 69.83
Sequential 102.04
Uncached Write 103.34 63.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 104.76 59.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 85.23 24.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 121.29 60.96 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 53.07
Uncached Write 20.17 2.13 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 125.45 40.16 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 95.54 0.68 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 136.26 25.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]

so on with the testing!!!!

naquaada · #5 03-09-2009, 09:37 PM

Uncached Write is always so awful slow on SATA, that's crap.

You also have a Maxtor ATA-133 series HD beginning with 6xxxx or 7xxxx on IDE like me in Tiger times. They are very fast!

LawlessPPC · #6 03-09-2009, 11:23 PM

As you can see i have now edited the last post as it is a maxtor (my favourite drives) until they where bought out) SATA 1 drive. The interesting thing is the highest scoring drive is a sata 1 drive. Will have to try that drive on the new controller. But heres the good bit if your chipset is not supported this is the cheapest (that I know of) way to have OSX bootable on any controller. If you have a sata drive but no kext for your chipset for just £17 you can be up and running. Also it doesnt cause a big delay in boot if a drives connected you only just get chance to see the bios screen. So i feel £17 for unhacked sata 1 & 2 drive support with official drivers good investment. Better than buyin a new motherboard *8O)

naquaada · #7 03-10-2009, 12:26 AM

Hm, I think there's a difference between SATA1/SATA-150 or SATA2/SATA-300. And by the way, these would be theroretical maximum transfer rates. The reality is different - unfortunately.

My Samsung SATA harddisks are all SATA2. The older ones (300GB, 400GB) have a jumper for switching to SATA1, the newer ones (500GB, 1 TB) have a note in the manual sheet that there must be installed a driver on SATA1-only-controllers. It seems that all Mac drivers are using the specification for SATA-150 only. A speed comparison can only be made with the same harddisks in Windows - the controllers and drivers are normally designed for this OS.