Home > Products >Host Controller> 4 Port eSATA II PCI-X Controller for Mac

Designed to the latest 3Gbits/sec ASIC from Silicon Image and eSATA connector, this 4-port controller incorporates many advanced features that are only found in some expensive RAID controllers. The 4 eSATA ports can be easily configured as 4 individual ports with no RAID or with RAID 0 or RAID 1 using the Mac OS Disk Utility.

When installed into the fast PCI-X BUS, this controller ensures maximum data throughput of 3 Gbits/sec per port. In addition, the latest External SATA (eSATA) connector also provides more secured cable connection, improved durability, increased EMI protection and up to 2 meters cable length. (For more detail on this new SATA external connector, please review the following white paper posted on SATA-IO.org)

Throughput up to 200 Mbytes/sec sustained data transfer can be achieved using standard 7,000 RPM SATA hard drive by setting up 4 drives in a RAID 0 configuration (see benchmark test result below). Together with the Addonics optional Disk Array 4SA system, Saturn Hard Drive kit or the external SATA drive enclosure, you can add external high performance storage system that rivals the traditional SCSI storage at less than half of the cost.

For more information on Serial ATA, please visit our tutorial page.

Product Features

• Use as a non-RAID or RAID controller. Create RAID 0 or 1 using the Mac OS Disk Utility.
• SATAI and SATA II compliant
• PCI-X and PCI BUS compatible
• Up to 300 Mbytes/sec (3 Gbits/sec) per port
• 4 External SATA (eSATA) ports with the new SATA External connector
• Work with any Serial ATA drive
  
• Support large hard drives of 137 GB or greater
• Silicon Image chip set SiI 3124
• Port Multiplier compatible
• Upgradeable firmware
• Fits standard height Desktop case
• Hot swap support - drive can be removed and added without system shut down or restart**
• simple plug and play
• Compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.x**, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Vista, Linux (2.4 kernel and higher)
  

*Note: It is common in RAID5 configuration that the WRITE speed performs slower than READ. Depending on system hardware, the WRITE performance can drop to 25% of the READ speed. This performance difference does not affect general database application where majority of the transations are READ commands. For applications that require large files transfer or continuous writing of data on the the hard drive such as video editing, RAID5 configuration may not be desirable.

** Hot swapping hard drive has been tested on Windows OS only. When drives are configured as RAID 0 and certain RAID combination, the removal of the hard drive will result in breaking the RAID set and result in data loss.

Part number and Pricing

Option 1: External SATA (eSATA) - SATA converter cable (model AASA2SAP15C, 15 cm.) plus External SATA data cable (model AASAEDC3F, 100 cm.)

The 15 cm. cable (AASA2SAP15C) converts the new eSATA connector back to standard SATA External connector plug. Together with the standard 100 cm. External SATA cable (AASAEDC3F), SATA storage device can then be connected to this controller. This combination gives the flexibility of connecting any external SATA device , to this eSATA controller or *PVR/Set Top Box to the standard SATA ports that are commonly found in most of today's SATA equipped systems.

Option 2: eSATA - SATA cable (AASA2SA100C, 100 cm.)

One end of this cable has the new eSATA connector for connecting to this eSATA controller, *PVR or Set Top Box. The opposite end has the the current standard SATA connector for connecting to SATA hard drive or other Addonics external SATA storage devices.

*At the present time, some PVRs (a few models from TiVo) and Set Top Boxes are equipped with this new eSATA connector.

Optional cables

Model	Description and Package Content (All external SATA cables are constructed with extra cable shielding to reduce EMI and improved signal integrity over 2 meter distance. Connector shell is constructed with metal clip for tighter connection and durability in external application. )	Click shopping cart to check price and order online
AASA2SAP15C	eSATA2 - SATA converter cable, 15cm (convert eSATA port to standard standard SATA port)	$9
AASAEDC3F	External SATA data cable - 100 cm (standard female SATA connector on both ends)	$9
AASA2SA100C	eSATA - SATA cable, 100 cm (connect storage device with standard SATA port to controllers with eSATA port)	$17.5
AAESATA100C	eSATA - eSATA cable, 100 cm (eSATA ports on both ends of cables)	$15.99
AAESATA200C	eSATA - eSATA cable, 200 cm (eSATA ports on both ends of cables)	$17.5

Specifications

PCI-X

• Compliant with PCI-X Specification, revision 1.0a
• Supports 133 MHz PCI-X with 64-bit data
• Internal application interface multiplexed to 4 ports
• All registers appear in unified memory space
• Full-chip command completion status accessible with single PCI-X burst access
• I/O port access to register space

High Speed SATA II

• Fully compliant with Serial ATA 1.0a and Serial ATA II Extensions to Serial ATA 1.0a Specifications revision 1.1
• Supports Serial ATA II Port Multiplier 1.0 Specifications revision 1.1
• Up gradeable firmware
• Supports Spread Spectrum in receiver
• Output Swing Control
• Supports four independent Serial ATA channels
• Independent Link, Transport, data FIFO, command fetch, scatter/gather, and command execution
• 31 Commands and Scatter/Gather Tables per Port
• Four Pin header on board for LED connection
• Shielded SATA Connectors
• Protocol Override per Command
• Staggered Spin-up Control
• Plesiochronous, Single PLL architecture, 1 PLL for 4 ports
• Supports First-party DMA commands for Native Command Queuing
• Temperature: Operating 0 to 70 degree C.
• Storage: -25 to 90 degree C.
• Humidity: Operating 20% to 80%
• Non Operating 15% to 90%
• RAID 10 (Mirrored-Striping) combine both Striping and Mirroring technologies to provide both the performance enhancements that come from Striping and the data availability and integrity that comes from Mirroring
• RAID 1+S (Mirrored-sparing) can automatically replace the failed drive and rebuild the system when booting HDD is failed
• Mac OS X 10.4.x**, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Vista, Linux (2.4 kernel and higher)
• 1 year warranty
  

Winbench 99 test result comparison between one drive and 4 drives striped over 4 ports

SATA data transfer rate is calculated at 10 bits=1 byte

System Requirement

• PC/AT or Compatible System
• One free PCI or PCI-X slot
• Pentium or greater
• Minimum 32 MB RAM
• 10 MB minimum free hard disk space
• One of the following operating systems: Mac OS X 10.4.x**, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Vista, Linux (2.4 kernel and higher)