Hi all,
I posted last year looking for advice on an eSATA card......actually two of them......one for my Mac and one for my PC. I got a lot of suggestions, but ended up going with a Vantec since CalDigit was out of their models and couldn't tell me where to get any, and Maxx blew me off since I didn't plan on purchasing an enclosure as well. Anyway, since then I've had nothing but problems with the Vantec card, so a year later I'm in the market again and hoping you all can help a girl out with the decision......
It seems something is seriously wrong with CalDigit as a business, since still to this day they have no stock of eSATA cards, nor can they tell me where to purchase one......nor can they even tell me a date when they might get more. I got the same answer as a year ago......that they are between models and the new model will be out any day. Strange. Are they going out of business?
I'm looking to purchase two identical eSATA cards, one for my Mac and another for my PC.......the fastest models possible. RAID is not an issue as I just use my drives individually, but port multiplier support with FIS-based switching is a must. My current PC motherboard, an EVGA Classified 760, uses the JMicron 363, which only supports command-based switching from what I can gather. The Intel controller does as well I believe, or I would just use the onboard eSATA. Funny that my old Asus A8N32-SLI board supported FIS-based switching all those years ago, yet my latest two boards, especially ones as expensive as the Classified and Gigabyte UD5, have not.
Anyway, with Caldigit not an option, I have been looking at Sonnet and Lacie. I attempted to research Adaptec since I had heard good things about them, but they have so many models and such convoluted information on them that I couldn't discern if any had external eSATA ports and whether they supported FIS. They're probably overkill anyway, although price isn't an object. I looked at Highpoint, but they have received a lot of poor reviews, so wasn't sure I should go that route. Any thoughts?
Currently I'm most closely looking at the Sonnet Tempo E4P and the LaCie eSATA II PCI Express Card 3Gb/s 713113. They can be found here:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11217
Again, I plan to use 2 5-drive enclosures that employ Silicon Image port multipliers and support hot-swapping of my 15 1-2 TB Western Digital RE3 and RE4 enterprise class drives using sleds that slip in and out. All are just individual volumes, no RAID setups. I really only need the card to have 2 eSATA ports, but 4 is fine as well. I'm looking for the fastest, most stable, best quality card I can find. No more cheapies like the Vantec. I want something that works, works quickly, and works without problems, disappearing drives/forced reboots, and hassles. I transfer large files to and from drives within the enclosure often and perform HD video editing and extensive audio work, so quick transfers and FIS-based switching is important. But so is stability. I don't know how many times I was forced to reboot when either the card itself or the drives within the enclosure would disappear for no reason on both machines. A nightmare. If only the new Intel chipset supported FIS.....why it doesn't is beyond me. An insane design choice.
Any advice and/or help you can give me in choosing from the cards I mentioned, or recommendations of other cards I haven't considered that you think might work better would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks a bunch for looking!
Proud owner of a happy pet Cthulhu!
