Hands down best PCIe eSATA card?

[Walter Biscardi]

The best card is the one recommended by the RAID manufacturer. In my case, we run both ATTO and LaCie SATA cards because they are recommended by MaxxDigital and LaCie.

First pick out the box you want, then purchase the card recommended by that box. If you want suggestions on building your own box, do a search on this forum as there have probably been dozens of suggestions put up here in just the past few months.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Winston A. cely]

Thanks for the tips, Walter! Will do.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

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[Winston A. cely]

Well, the only manufacture I’ve found that offers just the external eSATA box with no drives pre-installed is Granite Digital. Now I’ve had great experience with their enclosures, but I’m wondering if anyone else has a specific eSATA box they like that DOESN’T come with drives. Frankly, I don’t need to spend the money on drives. I’d rather use that to go for better hardware, i.e. PCIe card, software etc. The searches I’ve done here have been very helpful, but they keep leading me back to places like Sonnet, LaCie, Maxx, etc, but no one is offering just the box! 🙁

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 5.1.4 | Aja Kona LHe

[Bob Zelin]

I am not sure if you are looking for a RAID 0 or RAID 5 solution. All the RAID 5 solutions are very good on the market. All the RAID 0 solutions are more inexpensive (if you are looking to save money), but any product that is based on the Silicon Image 3124 chip set is prone to have your eSATA port multipler products disappear after time. Some people don’t see this problem for 3 years, some people see it in 1 month.

The generic $300 eSATA cards, sold by Sonnet, Cal Digit, Firmtek, Highpoint Rocket Raid, etc. have been on the market for about 3 years from now, and they are the most popular product on the eSATA market, because they support both individual eSATA drives, and port multipler chassis that hold up to 5 drives per enclosure. Even if these companies use Marvell chips (like Sonnet and Highpoint), they still communicate with Silicon Image chips in the drive box for port multiplication, and the drives will EVENTUALLY seem to have trouble mounting, and eventually disappear. This is why you see all the drive companies pushing their RAID 5 solutions so hard – the Silicon Image chipset has been an issue for every company that deals with eSATA drives.

I go thru this long boring story, because it is very tempting to say “but I can get 220mb/sec in a 5 bay eSATA chassis, and it will cost me very little money, compared to these RAID 5 solutions from Cal Digit, Sonnet, Maxx, Dulce, etc.”. But these RAID 0 solutions will ultimately give you problems. For some people- they don’t care- these products work, and they want to save money. Like I said, I put zillions of these RAID 0 products in, and most of them never had problems (yet) – but TONS of them DID have problems, and I have suffered enough to join the crowd, and now say “buy a RAID 5 solution” from any of the good companies.

Bob Zelin

[David Roth weiss]

Firmtek is a great bet for you Winston, many of us have had their products for years. I have a four bay and a two bay, as well as three of their host contoller catds.

Check out their new five bay enclosure at: https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-5pm/

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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[Bob Zelin]

winston –
you are getting great advice from everyone. Email me and I will tell you how to get the cheapest prices on this stuff.

Bob Zelin
maxavid@cfl.rr.com

[Lou Borella]

Winston
Check out Wiebetech.com.
They have desktop solutions that range from single-bay to eight-bay chassis.
I have their single bay RTX100. I use it for my final backup device. The drive is hot-swappable.
The chassis has eSATA, FW800 and USB2. This might be great for what you do if you are always using one drive per project. Plus its portable. I’ve started DV50 projects at home and finished them on the road using my laptop and this drive via FW800. It might be a little expensive for a single bay solution but the build quality is great and the 3 connection options come in handy. I needs a power light in the front though!!
Wiebetech also make cases for bare harddrives.
You should give them a call. I spoke to one of their techs for about 40 minutes one day asking the same questions you are asking now.

Lou …

[Nate Stephens]

” go thru this long boring story,”

Bob, Your stories are never boring. I toss a few catalogs on the fire and sit down for a good read…

But this Silicon Image 3124 chipset.. You mention it is problematic. Is it the only chipset for sata port multiplier technology? I like the idea of connecting one sata cable to a box of 5 sata drives. Are there other chipsets that allow for sata port multiplier technology? This 3124 problem reminds me of the early firewire chipsets and how if it wasn’t the Oxford chipset you would have problems…

Thanks for the “heads up”. These detail you will not find on a distributors website..

[Bob Zelin]

this is a reply to your questions about port multiplication, and alternate vendors. This is also a long boring story.

This is not film, this is not Sony Beta VTR’s. The computer industry moves fast, and port multiplication has been around for about 3 years. It is at the end of life, and better more advanced products (all from Intel) are out now, that do RAID 5 (and RAID 6). These Intel IOP series chips are what are being used by all the vendors you see advertised on Creative Cow. Companies like Dulce, Sonnet (that uses ATTO, but is based on the Intel IOP series), Maxx Digital, Cal Digit, etc.

I was one of the first people to jump into port multiplier chassis. It was GREAT, it was amazing. And then the drives started to disappear. When Walter had his Cal Digit disappear, I had not yet seen the problem on Sonnet chassis. But it eventually happened. And it happened on EVERYONES product. (and some people, who used Cal Digit, Sonnet, etc. never had the problem). Some OEM companies said “use the Highpoint 3124 RocketRaid, you will never have this problem of disappearing drives” – but they were wrong. I use to this day standard Port Multiplier chassis with Cal Digit Fasta 4x cards on every AVID edit system at Fox Sun Sports, and they have NEVER had a problem with these, but plenty of other clients of mine have had the “disappearing” drive problems. I thought Walter was crazy – but of course, he is not. People who say “this never happened to me, this stuff is great” have been lucky. Like I said, I have plenty of “lucky” clients, never with an issue.

Today, you forget the cheapie solutions, and go with what everyone on this user forum (banner ads) is advertising – newer RAID 5 solutions, from Dulce, Maxx Digital, Cal Digit, Sonnet, ATTO, ProMax, G-Tech, and others. You don’t save money when all of your media disappears for no reason one day.

Bob Zelin

[David Roth weiss]

So Bob, is the Firmtek SeriTek/2SE2 2-port PCI-Express eSATA PM host adapter based on the Silicon Image 3124 chip?

I have several of Firmtek’s earlier pre-PM cards and I’ve been wondering about their PM cards, which are very much new to their product mix.

Thnx,
David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.