FW Depot unveils new SATA PCI-X card
updated 02:50 pm EDT, Fri October 13, 2006
FW Depot SATA PCI-X card
FireWire Depot today introduced the SATA2-PCIE02, a new SATA PCI-X and eSATA PCI-Express card. The SATA2-PCIE02 is a 2-port ATA-to-PCI Express Host Adapter compatible with Mac OS X, and features a Silicon Image Sil3132 Serial ATA Host Controller designed to offer multiple port serial ATA connectivity with minimal host overhead and host-to-device latency. The card also supports a 1-lane 2.5 Gbps PCI Express bus and the Serial ATA Generation 2 transfer rate of 3.0Gbps (300 MB/sec). Host Protocol features include optimization for transaction-oriented designs, support for two-command issuance mechanisms providing greater efficiency with embedded implementations as well as reduced dependency on bridge behavior, and support for up to 4Mbit of external Flash for BIOS expansion. PCI Express features include an internal application interface multiplexed to two ports, full-chip command completion status that is accessible with single PCI Express access, and accessibility to all registered through input/output space. FireWire Depot's SATA2-PCIE02 card is available for $70.
Junior Member
Joined: Aug 2000
Hmmmm
I went to their product page, there are several things that make me nervous. They apparently do NOT include cables or even mention them. They do NOT specify what kinds of ports it has, SATA or eSATA. Even more disturbing, they imply that one needs drivers for "Mac OS 10.3 and 10.4." They state RAID is available for Windows, no mention of Macs.
I have a non-SeriTek card (i.e. economical) that does not need drivers at all. And drives can be raided with Disk Utility (FYI, it won't boot as a RAID volume, but will as single disks).