[kwlug-disc] Linux-compatible eSATA expansion cards

[Darcy Casselman]

I was gonna say... eSATA seems to be declining in favour of USB3.0.
Especially if you're talking about 3+TB drives.  If you don't already have
eSATA drives/enclosures (and if you do, ignore me), I'd go USB 3.0.

I've got a soon-to-be-redundant USB 3.0 PCIe card I'd be willing to
donate.  Works fine with Linux.  Can't remember specs or anything--it was a
Canada Computers special I got about a year ago.

Darcy.


On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 10:48 PM, unsolicited <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:

> Yes, it must be PCIe. PCI can never keep up - even if only one drive. As I
> recall, when I investigated. [If you have that many drives that you need a
> card, and no PCIe slots - time to replace the MB. This was one reason to
> wait for after-Sandybridge - more onboard Sata ports.]
>
> The whole x1 / x4 thing - thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten about
> such. (Shows how often I buy cards.)
>
> However, for Paul's case ... it need not be eSata for that use case. USB
> 3.0 would do it. Bonus for a USB 3.0 / eSata 6Gbps dock or enclosure you
> take the enclosure out of. (Leaving all Sata ports for internal drives.)
> USB 2.0 may well even do it for the use case Paul described.
>
> And nothing says you can't get more than 1 x4 card - but check your slots.
> IIRC most MBs I saw at the time had 3 x4 slots but one taken by video. Or
> using one slot halved the speed on some other - which mostly didn't matter
> as it was never expected that both such slots would be used at the same
> time. But do check the manual beforehand.
>
>
>
> On 14-06-30 06:09 PM, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
>
>> Let us backtrack a bit ...
>>
>> You need eSATA, perhaps for backup ...
>>
>> But do you need it to be PCIe?
>>
>> When I needed eSATA, I found that my older Aspire M3400 "server" has a
>> chipset that supports eSATA (SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller). All I did
>> was get a bracket that connected from the internal SATA connectors on the
>> motherboard to the back of the PC so I can plug in the eSATA cable to the
>> dock.
>>
>> The speed ranges from 29,955 kB/s to 43,330 kB/s.
>>
>> Perhaps that would be sufficient for your need?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  As a corollory to Darcy's excellent question (which I do not have an
>>> answer for either, even though we are going through a very similar
>>> exercise at work), I am looking for some PCIe eSATA cards that will
>>> work reliably under Linux (in particular, under Debian/Ubuntu).
>>>
>>> Here are some expansion cards I have found so far. Reviews report that
>>> they all seem to have problems with large I/O transfers:
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287028
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124064
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124056
>>>
>>> I am guessing that some chipsets are supported well under Linux and
>>> some are not, but I do not know how to find good, compatible cards.
>>>
>>> Ideally the card would have some internal SATA ports along with the
>>> eSATA ones, but this is not a firm requirement.
>>>
>>> - Paul
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://pnijjar.freeshell.org
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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