PCI-E Sata 3 card

KMpuggy · 14 Jun 2011 at 12:44

Im looking into buying one of them agility 3 ssds but my motherboard only has sata 2, so obviously i wont be able to get the full potential of the hard drive.

A mate said you can get PCI-E sata 3 cards that do the job and a quick google search and i came across this.

Xenta 2 port SATA 3 PCI-Express controller card - 6gbps

Cant find any reviews or comments about them, but is it a good option to get one of these or one like it and the agility 3? saves buying a new motherboard just for the option of sata 3.

suj999 · 14 Jun 2011 at 13:05

Will it be fine booting from the above controller card?

KMpuggy · 14 Jun 2011 at 13:10

suj999 said:
Will it be fine booting from the above controller card?

That and all?

It says "Supports Master and Slave operations from a single port"

So i guess it would be fine. Was also looking at the asus one on here, and from the reviews its boots fine.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-000-AS

rpstewart · 14 Jun 2011 at 14:00

I would be very suspicious of any card which doesn't explicitly say that it supports bootable devices, it's not necessarily universal functionality.

One big question - does your motherboard have PCIe 2.0 slots? If they're only rev1.0 slots then a cheap 1x card will be limited to 250MB/s - less than SATAII.

Zarf · 14 Jun 2011 at 14:06

The third party cards, even when they work, are generally to be avoided. Sequential speeds might get a bit higher (not as much as the SSD can handle), but 4K speeds tend to dive. Stick with your onboard.

KMpuggy · 14 Jun 2011 at 14:09

Motherboard specs here,
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A77TD_PRO/#specifications

Looks like it has 2.0 slots so all good there. Anyway im looking towards that asus one, as it comes with the added bonus of 2 USB 3.0 slots, plus its got decent reviews.

AbsenceJam · 14 Jun 2011 at 14:29

Find out what controller it uses, most don't have very good ones.

Methanoid · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:06

You'd need PCIeX4 to support 500Mb/s and get close to SATA3 speeds.

But most of those SATA3 SSDs dont actually REALLY regularly hit 300+Mb/s so SATA2 might actually do....

KMpuggy · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:49

Cheers, so the blue PCI-E slot on my motherboard should do then for one of them cards, as its rated x4.

I might just bite the bullet and get one of them Xenta cards, im curious now to see how they perform anyway, if no difference to SATA 2 port, then **** happens i suppose.

Methanoid · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:59

KMpuggy said:
Cheers, so the blue PCI-E slot on my motherboard should do then for one of them cards, as its rated x4.

I might just bite the bullet and get one of them Xenta cards, im curious now to see how they perform anyway, if no difference to SATA 2 port, then **** happens i suppose.

But the card ALSO needs to be x4 or higher.. no point with an x1 card in x4 slot