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Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:29:10 +1300
From: Mark Kirkwood <markir@paradise.net.nz>
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To: Vlad Skvortsov <vss@73rus.com>
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Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Promise SATA300 TX4302 feedback?
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Vlad Skvortsov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking to buy a Promise SATA300 TX4302 (PCI->[e]SATA) card to use 
> for external backups on a FreeBSD 6-STABLE system. Can anyone share 
> their experiences with this one?
>
> Also, the box is a pretty old hardware; pardon my ignorance, what 
> should I check to see if the PCI bus will accomomdate the card? The 
> card description[1] mentions:
>
> # PCI 33/66MHz bus supports up to 266MB/sec burst data transfer rate 
> (PCI 66MHz)
> # PCI 2.3 compliant
>
> Thanks!
>
> [1]: 
> http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?segment=Non-RAID%20HBAs&product_id=168 
>
>
Your motherboard needs to be PCI 2.2 or 2.3 complaint according to the 
manual (you need to tell us what the board is for us to help here). Most 
should be unless they are very old (later Pentium III Coppermine onwards 
should be ok).

The physical slot can be either a 32 or 64 bit one (if the latter the 
card only occupies the 1st half of it) - i.e any PCI slot.

Having said that, Promise support in Freebsd is a little variable - I 
have not tried the later cards, but had no joy with a TX4000 in a 
Supermicro P3TDER,  whereas a 3Ware 7506 worked no trouble at all. I 
would recommend getting a 3Ware SATA card (also they typically are a 
better card than the corresponding Promise).

regards

Mark