PCI SATA II controller for W7

[Uriel]

Now my ASROCK 939dual-sata2 is running superbly reliably again, I think it'll be making the journey to Windows 7 with me. Never been entirely happy with the onboard SATA II controller in Vista though and resorted to running at SATA 1 speed.

Is there a decent PCI SATA II controller that's not too expensive? Ideally i'd like the drivers to auto-detect during W7 installation and have options for RAID installation in future.

 

[Dinkas]

Even if your onboard SATA controller only works in SATA 150 mode, it's better than PCI, especially if you're planning RAID. SATA 150 gives 1.5Gbps bandwidth per channel, whereas PCI gives a total of 133MB/s that every device has to share.

If your motherboard doesn't have a spare PCI-E slot your only realistic options are stick with onboard controller or buy a new motherboard :\

 

[Fahim]

I use one PCI SATA II Controller - Promise TX4 SATA 300 4-port controller. It is very reliable, and it supports 66MHz PCI speed, so it gives 266mb/sec, which is close to SATA II speed. Not enough if you use multiple drives from the same controller, but still better than 133mb/sec.