Re: Internal SATA controllers

["Jonathan A. Kollasch" <jakllsch%kollasch.net@localhost>]

On Sun, May 01, 2011 at 06:53:39AM -0700, Paul Goyette wrote:
> I have a system with not-enough SATA ports on the motherboard.
> Since we don't currently support "port expanders", I'd like to add
> in a couple extra SATA ports.  Two additional ports is enough,
> although more ports would be preferred.  I don't need RAID, so not
> really looking to spend extra for it.
> 
> I've found a couple of products on-line
> 
> http://www.satasite.com/pci-express-sata-ii-raid-controller.htm
> http://www.startech.com/product/PEXSATA22I-2-Port-PCI-Express-Internal-SATA-Controller-Card
> 
> But would like suggestions/recommendations from people who are
> actually using these (or similar) products.

The SiI3132 on the first card is a siisata(4).
The second card looks like a JMB36x card, which would be jmide(4)
and/or ahcisata(4).

There's no significant difference under NetBSD, but the AHCI
would be supported out of the box by Windows 6.x.

I'd lean towards the AHCI cards (mostly JMicron and Marvell-based)
at this point, but the Silicon Image parts are okay too.

Also, AFAIK all the 6Gb/s SATA PCI Express 2.0 5Gb/s cards are
Marvell AHCI parts.

        Jonathan Kollasch