6G SATA Bootable (with Boot Camp too) with 2 SSD Mounts on one card - NOT Sonnet Tempo or Apricorn X

[gsloan]

6G SATA Bootable (with Boot Camp too) with 2 SSD Mounts on one card - NOT Sonnet Tempo Pro or Apricorn X2

I've gone through an Apricorn X1 (Slowish, and crashed my system) and a RocketRAID 642L in my quest to have my 2009->2010 Mac Pro bootable via 6G SATA. The RocketRAID slowed down POST by nearly a minute in Windows (Boot Camp) and my usual two-spins of the load icon in OS X were increased to 12. That, and you need to flash an EFI64 firmware onto it prior to being able to boot it into OS X, so it needs to be installed in Boot Camp or in a PC first. Lame.

The Apricorn X1 would cause system hangs.

I found the Syba SD-PEX40068 on Amazon, which uses the 88SE9230 chip, which is superior to the 88SE9235 on the RocketRAID in that it's a HW RAID controller. I was pleasantly surprised to find the following:

1) My system now boots to my Samsung Extreme SSD in less than one spin of the load icon. And without requiring a driver. Also boots Windows without requiring a driver.
2) With my Boot Camp SSD mounted in the second slot, I could choose to boot to OS X from Windows using the Boot Camp utility, and from OS X to Windows using the Select Startup Disk
3) My Windows time only increased by about 3 seconds, with the POST info from the Syba taking a small fraction of the time the RocketRAID did
4) Sleep works. It takes the controller a little longer to wake up (~10 seconds) but it comes back and works fine. In both OS X and Windows.
5) There are 2 internal SATA ports that I've run to my 5.25" bay so I can mount another couple SSDs if I feel the need.
6) It's only $43.60 as of writing this! - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BG0NMNA/
7) Windows HDD score on my 3G SATA Intel SSD improved from 7.3 to 7.6, and it's only a 3G SSD.

I don't see a Sonnet Tempo Pro performing any better...this is really a steal for what it lets Mac Pro guys do on the cheap.

Here's my system specs and a benchmark:
2009->2010 Mac Pro
Xeon W3690 3.46GHz 6-core
24GB Corsair CL-9 ECC Registered
GeForce GTX 680GTX 2GB
Orico USB 3.0 Adapter (working with Generic USBXCI Driver) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008V3TH48/
240GB Sandisk Extreme SSD
80GB Intel SSD
Both SSDs in a Syba SD-PEX40068 (linked above)
2x WD Red 2TB HDDs in internal bays

EDIT: Here's 2 Samsung 840 Pros in the Syba SD-PEX40068 vs a 480GB Accelsior E2 in QuickBench.

 

[purplegreen41]

Hi, gsloan,

Is this card recognized by your system as x2 or x4? I'm asking because my CustoMac has a Sandy Bridge processor, which will negotiate x2 down to x1.



I tried contacting Syba about this card, and here's the response that I received:

Dear Customer,

This card's size is an x4 slot.

This card supports PCIe x4/x8/x16 sized slots.

It also appears that this product has been discontinued / End-of-life.
So this card will not be made anymore.

We apologize for the delay.

Thank you for your patience.

If you require further assistance, questions, or requests, we are happy to comply.

As a reminder, our business hours: Monday ~ Friday, 9:00am ~ 5:30pm PST

For fastest possible Customers Service, E-mail: [email protected]

For OFF hours support, Come visit our forums:
http://www.sybausa.com/forum.php
Syba USA values your feedback.

Thank you for asking and improving information about our product.

On 7/19/2013 9:56 AM:
Part Number:SD-PEX40068


Hello,

Based on the photos, although this card appears to have PCIe x4 connectors, only the first half (PCIe x2) are actually connected to the electronics of the card.

Is this card recognized by computers as a PCIe x2 or x4 card? How will an Intel Sandy Bridge processor negotiate this card? Note that, if a PCIe card appears as x2 to a Sandy Bridge processor, it will only negotiate at x1, because Sandy Bridge only supports x1, x4, x8 and x16.

Thanks for your help!

 

[purplegreen41]

Followup reply from Syba support:



Dear Customer,

The product will be recognized as a PCIe x4 Bus Controller card.

 

[xc68000]

Just curious how you setup the hardware RAID volumes on this on a Mac Pro if the BIOS setup screens are unavailable. Also, I'm wondering if the BIOS can be disabled so you can just use this card as a standard 4 port host controller.

 

[gsloan]

It works as a standard 4-port controller by default.

To answer the question above, I booted into my Boot Camp install and set up the HW RAID-0 before cloning my install over. Worked perfectly.

 

[purplegreen41]

Tried installing the card in a PCIe 2 x16 (@x8), but my Sandy Bridge processor only negotiated at x1.

I bought an Ivy Bridge processor and should be able to test it in the next couple days.



EDIT:

Looking more carefully at the output from lspci -vv on my system, I see that the SD-PEX50055 card is actually appearing properly at a PCIe width of x2 (2-lanes):
02:00.0 SATA controller: Unknown device 1b4b:9230 (rev 10) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x2, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <512ns, L1 <64us
LnkSta: Speed 5GT/s, Width x2, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-


This is great, because I won't need to install an Ivy Bridge processor because this card is already working correctly. My former OWC Accelsior, however, was only negotiated at a width of x1, even though the two cards appear to use the same Marvell controller (1b4b:9230 (rev 10)). My guess is that this because the Accelsior only has a x2 physical connection, while the Syba SD-PEX40068 has a x4 physical connection, of which only x2 is actually used for data transmission. I'm really glad to have gotten this card while it was still available!


Here's the full output from lspci -vv

02:00.0 SATA controller: Unknown device 1b4b:9230 (rev 10) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device b000
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
Region 0: I/O ports at d050
Region 1: I/O ports at d040
Region 2: I/O ports at d030
Region 3: I/O ports at d020
Region 4: I/O ports at d000
Region 5: Memory at f7d10000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Expansion ROM at f7d00000 [disabled]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable+
Address: fee00000 Data: 4095
Capabilities: [70] Express (v2) Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
DevCap: MaxPayload 512 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <1us, L1 <8us
ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset-
DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
DevSta: CorrErr+ UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq+ AuxPwr- TransPend-
LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x2, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <512ns, L1 <64us
ClockPM- Suprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk+
ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
LnkSta: Speed 5GT/s, Width x2, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
Capabilities: [e0] SATA HBA <?>
Capabilities: [100] #1b4b
Capabilities: [923] #d001

 

[Jiojimbo]

Hi im looking for something cheaper than the sonnet and this seemed to be a good option, saddly the one you linked is indeed no longer avaible, what do you think about this one: http://www.amazon.com/Syba-2-5-Inch-Caddy-PCI-Express-SD-PEX40044/dp/B005MN2GQQ/ref=pd_cp_pc_1 it looks like the poor cousin!
i dont need raid, just to get it working stable. TNXS

 

[purplegreen41]

Hi, Jiojimbo,

That's definitely only a PCIe x1 card. You won't be able to get full SATA3 (6G) speeds from even one drive attached to that card. If all you need is to add storage, then that card would probably be fine, but the speeds will likely be closer to that of SATA2 (3G).

 

[Jiojimbo]

Hi purplegreen41 you are totally right, i havent noticed that. I went to Syba`s site and they still list the SD-PEX40068 even is marked as OS compatible, the thing here is that I cant find it enywhere tu buy it... And yes i would like to have the 6gb speed , i want to use one (or two) ssd as scratch disks.

Tnx for your answer, if i find it online, ill post it here

-Jio

 

[Jiojimbo]

Another tought: I already have a marvell chip on my mobo, do you think its possible to have a conflict between the one in the mobo and de syba one?