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StarTech.com PEXSATA22


Date
: 03/15/06 – 06:45:38 AM

Author
:

Category
: Storage

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
StarTech.com

Price:
$69.99 USD (MSRP)

Today is going to be a bit different for most of our readers as we will not be dealing with an overclockable product. Heck this item doesn't have anything to do with benefiting an overclock of any kind. If you are an avid reader of Overclockers Online then you will have become somewhat familiar with StarTech.com as I have posted a couple of reviews dealing with KVM switches in the last few months.

For those that are not familiar with StarTech.com then you will soon find out that StarTech.com is far more than just KVM switches. They are in fact one of the largest computer parts stores there is having supplied the IT industry and general public for the better part of the last two decades. With over 2000 items StarTech.com continues to grow and shows no signs of stopping.

Today I am going to be finally using one of my PCI-E 1X slots! The PEXSATA22 is a 2-port PCI-E 1X card capable of running at the full SATA II standard of 300MBps. Most enthusiast motherboards come with plenty of SATA/SATAII connections these days and especially motherboards with PCI-E 1X slots but for those needing to expand or upgrade a lower end motherboard with only a couple of SATA/SATA II connections then this card is for you. I will be putting the performance up against all major onboard chipset manufacturers including NVIDIA's nForce 4 and 430 chipsets, ATI's SB450, a VIA VT8237 southbridge, and an onboard Silicon Image controller that boasts the same 3132 controller. As you can see, all the major players are in this hand so let's get started.

Page 2 : Package

Every product comes in some sort of packaging and the PEXSATA22 from StarTech.com is no different. There shouldn't be much to it, but we will have a look none-the-less.

The box appears to be a standard design for all of StarTech.coms I/O cards. The design is very similar to the SV221MICROUA package I reviewed a short while ago just a different color and pattern but the feel is the same. Seeing as this is more of an IT product I wouldn't expect anything else really.

This sticker is the only evidence of what is actually enclosed in the package and does a good job providing us with all the details about the card inside.

Like all StarTech.com products there is 24 hour technical support via an 800 number or from their web site. StarTech.com proudly shows this on each and every box they put out to let us know that we can always reach them should we need technical assistance.

There is not much else to the exterior of the box on the top-side and being a universal package for all I/O cards I would expect just as much.

The rear of the box contains no specific information about the PEXSATA22 card inside but does provide more information about the entire StarTech.com I/O lineup as well as other information such as standards their products are manufactured under and where they were made.

The line of interest on the rear here is the middle one… "Reliable – Backed by a lifetime warranty". We also see that the product inside the box has been tested to comply with FCC safety standards. We will now have a quick peek at the specifications that describe this card before opening the box up and looking inside.

Page 3 : Specifications

A basic I/O card such as the PEXSATA22 doesn't really have a lot of specifications to spout off about so I was not expecting much when I headed over to the StarTech.com web site.

Like I anticipated, there isn't a whole lot to list. There isn't anything really extra that isn't visible from the front of the package. The Maximum Data Transfer Rate is actually missing a value as well, making this very short list of specifications incomplete. StarTech.com also has this to say about the PEXSATA22:

With that, we can now get inside and see what the card actually looks like.

Page 4 : Package Contents

Gently shaking the package didn't produce any audible indication that stuff was moving around too much inside so we are off to a good start. That is something I always check with packages because noise means something is moving and when stuff moves its chances of breaking increase exponentially.

As suspected, protection is in abundance for the simple device inside by way of a pair of foam sheets. The card is properly secured in an anti-static bag with a moisture absorbing packet to ensure condensation does not rear its ugly head. Tucked up against the right wall appears to be a single SATA cable.

Removing the card and foam reveals the manual, registration card, and CD that will be responsible for drivers.

Here are the accessories spread out to see. There isn't much but with a device of this nature that is expected and understood. Being a two port card it would be nice to see a second SATA cable, but I guess one is better than none. A quick browse through the manual revealed good step-by-step instructions on installing the card as an add-on to an existing Windows installation or as a controller for a new Windows install. This should make the install section a breeze.

We now have the card free from the claustrophobic interior of an anti-static bag to reveal a very small and simple piece of PCB. The card is a lovely mustard yellow PCB and contains very little in way of hardware onboard. To the far right is a bank of LEDs which should prove to be useful in identifying the working condition of the card and is always a welcome sight on hardware. Diagnostic LEDs are sometimes a god send and can save much time in diagnostics.

We can see there is no link to the outside world through the PCI mounting tab as expected seeing as this is a card for internal use only. It is weird seeing the tiny PCI-E X1 connection tab at the bottom of the card as opposed to the larger PCI connectors we are so use to seeing on expansion cards. Times are definitely changing.

The two important connections are the SATA connectors located here at the top of the card.

The heart and soul of this device is the Silicon Image 3132 chip as seen above. This chip is responsible for all the input and output of the card. Silicon Image is a known leader in the hard drive controller world and has provided additional SATA connections on many motherboards seen here at Overclockers Online. Here is a brief snippet from the Silicon Image website pertaining to the Sil3132 IC:

Full details can be found here.

Every device no matter how small or large needs a micro-processor of sorts and on this card the AMD AM29LV040B handles that job. I am not going to bore you with the details but if youre interested a download from AMD can be found here.

The backside of the PEXSATA22 is fairly un-eventful but the customary photograph is still required in my opinion. I mean, who doesn't like a shot of a PCB backside?

Page 5 : Installation

Installation of this card consists of 10% hardware and 90% software. Naturally I will start with the hardware portion.

Two to pick from…which one will it be? I think the removed expansion slot cover tips off my decision.

I figured since the hard drives are all towards the side of the case closer to the CPU I would mount the card in the top slot. Not that the Take 4 is big enough to cause a cable length issue. Really, the hardware installation of this card is beyond straight forward and very simple.

The last step was to secure the cables, using the included one provides plenty of room to the hard drive cage. I will also note that the provided cable fits very securely to connections on the card and hard drive. It is not one of the terrible cables that sit dangerously loose. I still wish StarTech.com threw a pair of cables in but I promise that will be the last time I complain about that.

Upon booting up after the hardware install the Sil BIOS option popped up and a quick press of the
F4
key got me into the configuration utility. You will notice I started with just the single drive and then will benchmark the RAID0 and RAID1 performance after. The layout is very simple and the options are quite straight forward.

With the single drive I simply had to start with
Create RAID set
and from the menu of options choose
Concatenation
. The other selections require multiple drives to be installed. From here it was just a matter of selecting the single drive and exiting the configuration utility.

This time after the reboot from exiting, The array shows as created and we can now move onto getting windows to see the drive.

Once in windows we have to install the drivers for windows to recognize that there is another drive plugged into the system. The included CD was dropped into the tray but auto run did not start. Windows recognized the CD as a blank CD asking what I wanted to do. Upon opening Windows Explorer to view the disk it was clear why. The CD was a drivers disk for a number of Silicon Image controllers so I had to find the right driver set to install. It was easy as the folder labeled
PCI-E
only had a two and four controller option so clearly the two driver folder was the obvious choice.

The install is quite simple and the only options we have are an install folder and the ability to choose either both the GUI and driver or either of those choices. In order to have the drive be seen in Windows the Driver needs to be installed but the GUI is optional.

Once installation finished the GUI popped up showing we had one drive setup in Concatenation. From here we have the ability to delete, and rebuild arrays but creating has to be done through the BIOS utility. The last step to getting the drive useful in Windows is to initialize, partition, and format it.

The top half of this image is how the drive looks initially and the bottom half is how the drives shows up once finished formatting. As soon as
Disk Management
opened it recognized a new disk and started the initialization wizard. A couple steps later and our new drive is ready for use. The complete install takes less than a few minutes and is as straight forward as expected. If you have installed a RAID array before then the manual will not even be needed as there is nothing odd or difficult to get this card up and running. It is now time for a little testing by way of HD Tach.

Page 6 : Testing

This will be the list of hardware being used for testing the StarTech.com PEXSATA22:

As I noted earlier, I will be comparing the results of the drive performance against a number of other chipsets. HD Tach will be the program used for this. Benchmarking is quite straight forward for this type of setup. I will run the long bench of HD Tach 3 times after a clean reboot and average the results that are listed in the charts below. This was completed on clean installs for all machines with all appropriate drivers installed. The single drive results are from a single WD Raptor and the RAID0/RAID1 results from a pair of Raptors. Let's see how the Sil3132 on the PEXSATA22 faired starting with the single SATA Raptor results:

SATA I

Not a lot to report here. Seeing as this card uses the Silicon Image 3132 controller it is no surprise to see it on par with the rest of the onboard controllers but does handily outperform this same chip on the ECS KA1 MVP I recently reviewed.

RAID1

As we move to the RAID1 performance in which each Raptor is mirrored onto the other providing solid redundancy, we again see similar results with the StarTech.com card outperforming the onboard Sil3132 solution in the Burst Speed results. There is nothing special about the rest of the results here compared to other controllers.

RAID0

The last of the performance testing will involve the Raptors setup in a RAID0 for best performance. The PEXSATA22 beats the onboard offerings of the KA1 easily like in previous tests but the burst speed lags behind compared to the others. In the average read department, which is most important, the StarTech.com card is one of the better performers. The one thing I want to point out is the CPU utilization in this set of results. The StarTech.com uses the least of all controllers and performs as well or better which gives it the edge.

Page 7 : Conclusion

As we saw in the testing section, the StarTech.com PEXSATA22 is a very good performer as far as software RAID controllers go. The PEXSATA22 performs on par or better than all of the onboard controllers that were tested and did so using less of the CPU in most instances. It also easily bested the onboard Sil3132 controller found on the ECS motherboard which speaks volumes for this card.

If you are looking to add SATA support for either additional drives or a performance boost and have a PCI-E 1X slot open, then the StarTech.com PEXSATA22 is a very affordable option to fill your needs. Installing windows on a RAID array of this drive is very simple and straight forward to get a drive running on but you will have to make a drivers disk from the included CD as one is not provided.

Overall I would have to say that this is another fine piece of hardware at a good price offered up by StarTech.com. As long as they keep putting out these solid products I will continue to enjoy reviewing them.

Advantages:

• Simple installation and setup with Windows
• Typical performance with onboard software based RAID
• Outperforms onboard equivalent Sil3132 easily

  Disadvantages:

• Only one SATA cable included (Okay, so that was the last time)
• Does not offer anything beyond what onboard solutions do

  Overclockers Online would like to thank StarTech.com for providing the review sample.