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Date:      Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:33:37 +0100 (CET)
From:      Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>
To:        freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   SATA PCI adapter recommendation
Message-ID:  <200902110833.n1B8XbLo096837@lurza.secnetix.de>

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Hi,

I plan to put a SATA drive in an old PATA-only PC, so I'm
looking for an appropriate adapter card.  A cheap card
should suffice, I do not need RAID, and it does not have
to be SATA-300.  (This machine has only standard PCI slots
anyway, so it wouldn't be able to saturate SATA-300.)

I'm currently looking at these, all of which are about
20 Euro around here:

1. Based on Silicon Image Sil-3x12 chip:
http://www.digital-data.de/download/datasheets/111816_Datasheet.pdf

2. Based on Initio INIC1620 chip:
http://www.digital-data.de/download/datasheets/111817_Datasheet.pdf

3. Some VIA chip (probably VT6421A, but not 100% clear):
http://www.delock.de/view/pdf/70156/A/1943/

I've read a few scary things about SIL chips on the lists,
so I guess I'd better try to avoid that one.
But how about the Initio and VIA ones?  Do they work well
with FreeBSD?  Any good or bad experiences?

Finally, a small question:  I assume that all of those
SATA controllers do have their own BIOS, so I can boot
from them, right?  It would be annoying to have to keep
an old PATA disk in that box just to be able to boot.

Thanks!

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M.
Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606,  Geschäftsfuehrung:
secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün-
chen, HRB 125758,  Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart

FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr:  http://www.secnetix.de/bsd

"Perl will consistently give you what you want,
unless what you want is consistency."
        -- Larry Wall



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