cassiusdrow Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 I'd like to report that the Rosewill RC-218 4-port PCIe x4 SATA card works with unRAID v4.3.3. Its Marvell 88SX7042 chipset is supported by the sata_mv module. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018 My system: BIOSTAR TA690G AM2 AM2 AMD 690G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor 2 x Kingston 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Memory Rosewill RC-218 4-port PCIe x4 SATA card Antec earthwatts EA380 380W Power Supply AeroCool ZeroDegree ATX Mid Tower Case iStarUSA BPU-350SATA Aluminum Black 3 to 5 Bay HDD Hot-Swappable SATAII Enclosure Kingston DataTraveler I 2GB Flash Drive 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive 3 x Western Digital Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive Edit: This card has no RAID modes, does not support optical drive, and does not support booting from any connected drives. It does not require any BIOS configuration. The card uses jumpers to choose either 4 internal SATA ports OR 2 internal SATA ports and 2 external eSATA ports. I have not used the eSATA ports, but I would assume they would appear just like the internal ports to unRAID/Linux. Rosewill's product page: http://www.rosewill.com/products/1128/productDetail.htm Edit again: This card is the same as StarTech's PEXSATA24E card: http://us.startech.com/product/PEXSATA24E-2-Port-eSATA-4-Port-SATA-PCI-Express-x4-SATA-Controller-Adapter-Card-PCIe Quote Link to comment
RobJ Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 Thank you, added to the Hardware Compatibility wiki page. Quote Link to comment
semicycle Posted December 12, 2008 Share Posted December 12, 2008 Hey, can you let me know what type of throughput you get with that card. I considered it be decided to go with 2 refurb Promise TX4s from the egg. Quote Link to comment
cassiusdrow Posted December 13, 2008 Author Share Posted December 13, 2008 I am getting about the same throughput as the motherboard SATA ports - about 70mb/s according to hdparm tests. Quote Link to comment
mikep Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Hi, I just replace my promise TX4 PCI card with this one and now my parity check went from 30 MB/s to 60 MB/s...That good. This card has the same Marvell 88SX704 chip as the Adaptec 1430SA card. Mike Quote Link to comment
TSM Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 I've noticed this card before, and contemplated purchasing. But, I've always had the impression in my mind that Rosewill was a computer company with questionable product quality. Am I right to feel this way? What's everyone's experience been. If a lot of folks have had good experience's I might buy this card. Good price for the specs. Quote Link to comment
dandirk Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 Rosewill is a house brand for Newegg... I have only seend Rosewill offered by newegg and on ebay (which was probably bought from newegg originally). I have mixed thoughts on rosewill, I have gotten some decent components from them, well decent enough to not really remember good or bad so they must have worked as intended. Though I did purchase an eSata enclosure from then which worked well for about a year, at which time the fan started to get really loud and needed replacing. It was hardwired to the enclosure so it would have been a pain. I ended up getting rid of the item I was using it with... so not a huge deal. You get what you pay for. Electronics can be a tough area in this subject though, they can either go to crap right away or last forever. I personally would only buy sub $100 parts from rosewill or something not critical that I want to save a buck from. Quote Link to comment
JRS Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 I've had good luck with Rosewill parts, but do consider it an economy brand. I've got sata and ide pci expansion cards that have never failed or gave me problems. I would have no problems using any of there hard drive expanion cards in an unRaid server because if the card dies, it is highly unlikely you'd lose any data. You can plug that drive(s) into another port and be good. I would not, for example, use one of their 4 port sata cards to build a Raid 5 array with critical data and run paying customer's databases from that array. Quote Link to comment
William Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 I'd like to report that the Rosewill RC-218 4-port PCIe x4 SATA card works with unRAID v4.3.3. Its Marvell 88SX7042 chipset is supported by the sata_mv module. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018... Looking at upgrading to a Pro system and adding HDs for more storage. I use a Supermicro C2SEE motherboard and looking to add quality SATA II ports at the best price. The Rosewell in on sale now so looks like a good time to buy. Is this a good choice and what does "...supported by the sata_mv module..." mean? Do I have to do a special setup or just plug it in, attach HDs and upgrade to Pro? Also there should no problems adding 2 of these for 8 more SATA HDs ports and will unRAID support the 2 eSATA ports? Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 will unRAID support the 2 eSATA ports? Keep in mind, the way the eSata ports usually work is via a jumper which selects the internal OR external port. Will the eSata ports work with unRAID, yes as long as the controller is supported (which I believe it is) and you are aware that two internal ports will be switched off when enabled. Quote Link to comment
cassiusdrow Posted July 12, 2009 Author Share Posted July 12, 2009 what does "...supported by the sata_mv module..." mean? Do I have to do a special setup or just plug it in, attach HDs and upgrade to Pro? Also there should no problems adding 2 of these for 8 more SATA HDs ports and will unRAID support the 2 eSATA ports? sata_mv is the driver module that allows the Linux kernel in unRAID to use the SATA card. I just pointed it out for Tom's benefit as a reason to continue including that module in unRAID. There is no special setup. I just plugged it in and it worked. I am only using one of these at the moment, so I don't know if there are any issues using more than one of these controllers. The board uses jumpers to choose either 4 internal SATA ports OR 2 internal SATA ports and 2 external eSATA ports. I have not used the eSATA ports, but I would assume they would appear just like the internal ports to unRAID/Linux. Quote Link to comment
William Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 what does "...supported by the sata_mv module..." mean? Do I have to do a special setup or just plug it in, attach HDs and upgrade to Pro? Also there should no problems adding 2 of these for 8 more SATA HDs ports and will unRAID support the 2 eSATA ports? sata_mv is the driver module that allows the Linux kernel in unRAID to use the SATA card. I just pointed it out for Tom's benefit as a reason to continue including that module in unRAID. There is no special setup. I just plugged it in and it worked. I am only using one of these at the moment, so I don't know if there are any issues using more than one of these controllers. The board uses jumpers to choose either 4 internal SATA ports OR 2 internal SATA ports and 2 external eSATA ports. I have not used the eSATA ports, but I would assume they would appear just like the internal ports to unRAID/Linux. Thanks, I just ordered one. Now if I could just find a couple of 1.5TB HD for $100 ($200) I would be set. Quote Link to comment
William Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 what does "...supported by the sata_mv module..." mean? Do I have to do a special setup or just plug it in, attach HDs and upgrade to Pro? Also there should no problems adding 2 of these for 8 more SATA HDs ports and will unRAID support the 2 eSATA ports? sata_mv is the driver module that allows the Linux kernel in unRAID to use the SATA card. I just pointed it out for Tom's benefit as a reason to continue including that module in unRAID. There is no special setup. I just plugged it in and it worked. I am only using one of these at the moment, so I don't know if there are any issues using more than one of these controllers. The board uses jumpers to choose either 4 internal SATA ports OR 2 internal SATA ports and 2 external eSATA ports. I have not used the eSATA ports, but I would assume they would appear just like the internal ports to unRAID/Linux. I have the card installed with 2 drives hooked to it but they don't show up. Do I need to install drivers for the card and if so how do you install them? Quote Link to comment
cassiusdrow Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 I have the card installed with 2 drives hooked to it but they don't show up. Do I need to install drivers for the card and if so how do you install them? What version of unRAID are you using? I'm currently using v4.4.2, and I have not tried the current version (v4.5beta6). Can you post a syslog? Quote Link to comment
William Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 What version of unRAID are you using? I'm currently using v4.4.2, and I have not tried the current version (v4.5beta6). Can you post a syslog? Got it going as posted in this thread. I had 2 different power cables that were bad. Quote Link to comment
jimwhite Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Hi, I just replace my promise TX4 PCI card with this one and now my parity check went from 30 MB/s to 60 MB/s...That good. This card has the same Marvell 88SX704 chip as the Adaptec 1430SA card. Mike Too bad we can't dispense with the Adaptec 1430sa's bios chip alltogether and use native chipset support.... Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 Good News Fellow unRAID'ers. I received my controller and tested it out in the ASUS P5B-VM DO motherboard. I read some interesting web sites that seemed to lead that this chipset supports port multipliers... Lo and Behold, I tested it out this eve with my portable Venus port 2 Drive port multiplier and I can report it is working in unRAID Beta-5.6. It was a bit if jumping around the settings on the device, but once I switched it to JBOD everything started working. 2 drives on 1 eSATA Cable (JBOD). The raid1, raid0 and safe modes worked too, but you could not access them via smartctl. In JBOD mode you can access each drive directly. I did a quick DD test, The drives talk at 83MB/s with hdparm -t tests. (250G Seagate 7200.9) With the DD test the speed was around 65MB/s. I ran 2 simultaneous DD's one for eadh drive and each drive reported 65MB/s at the same time. I have not run real world data on this card yet, but I thought it worth while to mention the progress so far. Quote Link to comment
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