PCIE 2.0 to SATA3 SSD Expansion Card: What should I expect?

[Mercennarius]

My board only supports SATA2 so in order to get the most out of my SSD I have ordered a SEDNA PCIE 2.0 to SATA 3 SSD expansion card. Currently HD Tune shows my SATA 2 setup delivering about 265MB read/write from my Micron M500 SSD. This card will use my PCIE 2.0 X1 slot and will only have my Micron M500 connected to it as my boot drive. Wondering if anyone has experience with this card or a similar expansion card and what your results were? Curious if this will increase/decrease my boot time and how much performance difference it will make. I'm fully aware the PCIE 2.0 is a bottleneck for SATA3. Thanks!

 

[Ferrum Master]

Any expansion card will INcrease boot time.

It should be like that yes as the PCIE 2.0 X1 ~= SATA2

Just use it... you will gain nothing from SATA3 actually. The 4K and parallel tast results are the same... Just always stick to Intel controller it is simply the best.

 

[Mercennarius]

Any expansion card will INcrease boot time.

It should be like that yes as the PCIE 2.0 X1 ~= SATA2

Just use it... you will gain nothing from SATA3 actually. The 4K and parallel tast results are the same... Just always stick to Intel controller it is simply the best.

Why would I gain nothing from SATA3 in this scenario? Thanks!

EDIT: This is the card I have purchased.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JM1194254

 

[Toothless]

I guess PCIx1 is like SATAII speeds. If you went with a PCIx4 then you would see a boost.

 

[Mercennarius]

I guess PCIx1 is like SATAII speeds. If you went with a PCIx4 then you would see a boost.

PCIe 2.0 x1 interface limits read/write speed to 500MB/s, which I believe is also the limit of my Micron M500. So going to an x4 slot shouldn't make any difference.

 

[newtekie1]

PCI-E 2.0 x1 is 500MB/s, so about double SATA II, not the same. So the raw read/write speed will definitely increase to near SATAIII speeds.

The problem? Latency. Most of those adapters introduce a lot of latency, especially the cheap ones. And latency is the real reason SSDs feel fast. So while the read/write speeds might go up, the end result might be that the system actually feels slower.

 

[Mercennarius]

PCI-E 2.0 x1 is 500MB/s, so about double SATA II, not the same. So the raw read/write speed will definitely increase to near SATAIII speeds.

The problem? Latency. Most of those adapters introduce a lot of latency, especially the cheap ones. And latency is the real reason SSDs feel fast. So while the read/write speeds might go up, the end result might be that the system actually feels slower.

Good to know. I'll do some latency tests between both setups and post back later this weekend. How should this effect my boot time?

 

[Toothless]

I was half right? Yes? Maybe? Man I don't have enough coffee for this.

 

[newtekie1]

Good to know. I'll do some latency tests between both setups and post back later this weekend. How should this effect my boot time?

Boot time is more reliant on random read/write of a lot of small files, so it relies heavily on latency. Your boot time might actually increase.

 

[Mercennarius]

Boot time is more reliant on random read/write of a lot of small files, so it relies heavily on latency. Your boot time might actually increase.

Hoping that's not the case here, i'll do some tests and report back results later this weekend. Thanks for your help!

 

[Ferrum Master]

PCI-E 2.0 x1 is 500MB/s, so about double SATA II, not the same.

You forgot the overhead... and real speed. Just as SATA has. In real world those controllers cannot top 350-380MB/s, In 4K and 64order they will perform even worse. I have tested eather ASMEDIA and Marvell solutions.

On X58 platform the stock ICH10 SATA2 does the job fine! One does not need the 500MB/s as really those are rare in real world usage.

The only ones that are ok are server oriented SAS controllers that usually cost more that the entire mainstream desktop setup.

Boot time increases due to OPROM load and driver initialization... just same as any SCSI device since dino age. It needs time for itself. New NVME drivers also suffer from the same. SATA is more bare metal and native... it just kicks in faster, despite being slower overall.

 

[newtekie1]

You forgot the overhead... and real speed. Just as SATA has. In real world those controllers cannot top 350-380MB/s, In 4K and 64order they will perform even worse. I have tested eather ASMEDIA and Marvell solutions.

That isn't really from overhead, that is just from the controller being slow.

 

[Mercennarius]

Ok so I did a few tests in HD Tune with my current setup. Will post results from the same tests with the PCIE expansion card hopefully tomorrow.

 

[Mercennarius]

Unfortunately I have not been able to get the expansion card to work today. I have it installed and can get Windows to see it in device manager. I installed the included drivers. But no matter what I do in the BIOS I can not get it to boot to the hard drive. Depending on what settings I have changed it will either say "Expansion Card Could Not Initialize: Mass Storage Device Installed", or it will just say "No operating system found". Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[newtekie1]

You've connected the SATA power?

What settings have you changed?

After getting everything set up, you may have to go into your BIOS and select the expansion card, or the SSD on the expansion card, as your boot drive.

 

[Mercennarius]

You've connected the SATA power?

What settings have you changed?

After getting everything set up, you may have to go into your BIOS and select the expansion card, or the SSD on the expansion card, as your boot drive.

Yes SATA power is connected. I've changed the PC boot order to start with PCI BEV but it does not make a difference. This is one of the errors I get:

If I disable the Network PXE boot option in the bios the error goes away but will just say no operating system found when my HD is connected to the card.

 

[newtekie1]

When you disable Network PXE boot, do you get an option to go into the the Expansion ROM during boot? It usually tells you to press something to get in to configure the expansion card, in the configuration for the expansion card it should let you select the boot device. You have to select the boot device twice. You have to select the SSD in the expansion card's configuration, and you have to select expansion card as the boot device in the main BIOS.

 

[Mercennarius]

When you disable Network PXE boot, do you get an option to go into the the Expansion ROM during boot? It usually tells you to press something to get in to configure the expansion card, in the configuration for the expansion card it should let you select the boot device. You have to select the boot device twice. You have to select the SSD in the expansion card's configuration, and you have to select expansion card as the boot device in the main BIOS.

I don't. It just goes to the"1962: No operating system found" error. I tried putting in my Windows 8 disc and when it boots into the Windows 8 installation it gives me the option to install windows on the drive while hooked up to the PCIE card. I may try and get a spare drive tomorrow and install a fresh copy of windows this way and see if it will boot.

 

[oinkypig]

I know Vantec's pcie 2.0 2x sata 3 (4 channel 6 port) needs to be setup with the network raid manager in order to get to boot. At least ive read in some review the Same thing can be said for LSI raid cards. My LSI 9260 popped out of a hp server is near impossible to flash both the bios and firmware, and youve explained the symptoms im having in windows that seem very similar . The only thing i haven't tried is flashing firmware with a floppy drive and managing the card in my OS with megaraid storage manager. This thread is meaningless without pics.

 

[Mercennarius]

I've kind of given up on this at the moment. I got to register in windows and even see a drive attached to it but it sees it as a removable storage and does not actually allow me to do anything with it. It only gives me the option to "Safely eject the storage device". Device manager sees the card and the drive, but its not shown in My computer as a usable storage device. The BIOS sees the card but never sees the drive on its own and always defaults to no operating system found. Windows install disc does give the option to format/install windows on the drive which might be what this needs to boot but I have not done this yet. Taking a break messing with this and will report back later if I try to get this to work again. Thanks.

 

[EarthDog]

Boot time is more reliant on random read/write of a lot of small files, so it relies heavily on latency. Your boot time might actually increase.

It will anyway assuming the expansion cards loads in the BIOS... but that was covered earlier I think... why am I going to still hit post?