If I buy a card - these cards will work correctly?

Experiences with hard disks, SSDs, USB devices, hard disk controllers, motherboards and so.
ylo
Posts: 2
Joined: 2012.12.16. 16:56

If I buy a card - these cards will work correctly?

Post by ylo »

Welcome. I'm sorry I did not understand english well, google translation here.
I looked at your list of Compatible Hard Disk Controllers , RAID Controllers .

I watched the following PCI Express cards. Can you say if these cards work with HD Sentinel software correctly ... SMART info, etc?
I do not need a RAID configuration, only different HDD ... example: HDD1 my videos, HDD2 other data, etc.

No 1: (Marvell 9128) StarTech 4 Port PCI Express SATA III (6Gbps) Controller Card w / eSATA - PCIe x4
http://eu.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/H ... 34#tchspcs
Marvell 9128 the list Compatible Hard Disk Controllers, may be PLX - PEX8604 not violate work?
This card I like the most.

No 2: (Marvell 88SE9230) StarTech 4 Port SATA III 6Gbps PCI Express 2.0 RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering
http://eu.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/H ... RH#tchspcs
Marvell 9230 if it works, i have not found the controller in this list?

No 3: (Marvell 88SX7042) SYBA 2 +4 SATA II 4 Channels PCI - e x4 Controller Card , Marvell Chipset 88SX7042
http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php? ... rentPage=1
If it works?

Many cards have the same chipset, the only vendor differs, i think, that they function the same way, i mean correctly?
For example, Marvell 9230 controller :
DIGITUS website a little bit wrong: http://www.digitus.info/en/products/acc ... s-30104-1/
or
DAWICONTROL: DC-624e RAID 4-Channel SATA 6G RAID 5 Controller PCIe 2.0 x2 http://www.dawicontrol.com/index.php?cm ... et&id=raid

Many thanks if you find time to answer.
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hdsentinel
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Re: If I buy a card - these cards will work correctly?

Post by hdsentinel »

If you prefer to have non-RAID configuration, I suspect all such cards can work without problems.

Generally yes, as you wrote, we may expect that all controllers (regardless of the manufacturer) using the same chipset work in the same way.

This is usually true - but not really for Marvell, as their controllers are a bit more special.
For example, if you'd plan to use a RAID array with Marvell 91xx chipset, the status of the hard disk could not be detected.
But with a HighPoint RocketRAID 62x card (which is based on Marvell 9128 chips as well) you can have complete hard disk status information even in RAID configuration - as the card works with HighPoint-specific firmware which has even better functionality than the original ;)

But as you wrote, you do not prefer to use RAID now, just standalone mode, then both Marvell 9128 and 9230 should work.

> No 1: (Marvell 9128) StarTech 4 Port PCI Express SATA III (6Gbps) Controller Card w / eSATA - PCIe x4
> Marvell 9128 the list Compatible Hard Disk Controllers, may be PLX - PEX8604 not violate work?
> This card I like the most.

This seems so interesting. Personally I did not test this yet, but I'll surely do in the near future.
However, tested numerous combinations of Marvell 9128 + external eSATA enclosures with port mutlipliers (like the PEX8604) and experienced no problems, all hard disk status, complete S.M.A.R.T. information detected and displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel.
The only difference here is that the port multiplier chip is on the controller board (not in the enclosure) so I suspect there should be no problems.


> No 2: (Marvell 88SE9230) StarTech 4 Port SATA III 6Gbps PCI Express 2.0 RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering
> Marvell 9230 if it works, i have not found the controller in this list?

This card just arrived and it is still under testing and evalution.
In standalone (non-RAID) mode it should work without problems, complete S.M.A.R.T. information should be detected and displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel.


> No 3: (Marvell 88SX7042) SYBA 2 +4 SATA II 4 Channels PCI - e x4 Controller Card , Marvell Chipset 88SX7042
> If it works?

While in general it works, we experienced some compatibility problems, especially with large capacity hard disks. As this Marvell chipset is an older one, personally I do not really recommend this.


In general, for 91xx and 9230 series of Marvell controllers it is a good idea to use Windows "Standard AHCI Compatible Controller" Driver. Sometimes it works even better than the driver provided by Marvell.

If you'll have your card and your configuration is running, please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option in Hard Disk Sentinel, just to confirm the situation. Thanks!
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