Looking at inexpensive sata controller cards

I have some older systems that need new hard drives. I came across a great deal on hard drives with the caveat that they were sata. Well, I would prefer sata drives in the machines for the cabling if nothing else. However these systems didn’t have sata ports so I decided to try and find out if I could find a sata controller card that was cheap enough to not ruin the value of the drives. It’s not easy to find out what chipset most cards use and then check the Linux compatibility but here’s what I found.

NCQ support

If possible it would be nice to have NCQ support for the drives. Unfortunately the only drives I found which support NCQ in Linux are PCIe which these systems do not support.

• SYBA SY-JM363-2S1P (PCIe) - uses a JMicron 363 chipset which is supported by the Linux ahci driver.
• Rosewill RC-211 (PCIe) - uses a Silicon Image 3132 chipset which is supported by the sata_sil24 driver.

VIA 6421

These use the sata_via linux driver.

• SYBA SY-VIA-150 - uses VIA VT6421A chipset and has no RAID and is not bootable.
• SYBA SY-VIA-150R - uses VIA VT6421A chipset and has RAID and is bootable.
• Rosewill RC-215 - uses VIA 6421 and has 2 internal sata and 1 internal ide.
• Rosewill RC-212 - uses VIA 6421 and has 2 internal sata, 2 external sata, and 1 internal ide.

Silicon Image

These use the sata_sil driver. In doing research they all seem tocome with either the Silicon Image 3112 or 3512 chipsets. I assume that the 3512 is a replacement of 3112.

• Rosewill RC-201 - 2 internal sata
• SYBA SD-SATA150R - uses Silicon Image 3112.
• Koutech PSA150 - uses Silicon Image 3112 or 3512.

Thoughts

I think I’m leaning toward the Rosewill RC-201 which seems cheap, suites my needs, and has favorable reviews. But I haven’t decided yet.