Cheap PCIe SATA III controller for a fast SSD

[romansoft]

Hi,

I've got a fast SSD (Crucial MX300 SSD 750GB), which is ~500 MB/s read&write (sequential), and I need to buy a SATA III controller for it (I only need 1 SATA port). My Mobo has a free PCIe 3.0 slot.

My first attempt was a Syba controller (Syba SI-PEX40061):
http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=147
(chipset: Marvell 88SE9120).

Being PCI-e 2.0 x1, I thought it should be suitable for 500 MB/ full-duplex speeds (shouldn't be?).

But I have returned it because I only managed to get ~350 MB/s write (read is not bad: ~440 MB/s). :-/ I don't know if the problem is x1 or maybe the chipset is not so powerful.

I know that I should be worried more about random 4k read/write IO than sequetial read/writes but despite that, I don't like the idea of being limited by the controller.

Would you recommend me a cheap (~30 eur?) PCIe (v2|v3) SATA III card which doesn't limit my SSD throughput?

It will be for a microserver running ESXi but I don't mind not to be in vmware's HCL (vmw_ahci shoud work).

The controller doesn't need to have RAID; just to permit a bootable SSD.

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you!

Cheers,
-r

 

[13thmonkey]

What PCI-E slots do you have available to you?

 

[romansoft]

As I previously said:
"My Mobo has a free PCIe 3.0 slot"

It supports x1, x4 ... x16.

 

[13thmonkey]

Did you try a SATAIII cable?
I was thinking something like this: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/startech-2-port-dual-profile-pci-express-sata-6gbps-controller-adaptor
but it is fundementally no different to your current one.

 

[romansoft]

I returned the card, so I cannot re-test. But seems very strange that the problem is the cable :-?

It should be the same to use a sata-ii or sata-iii cable:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/SATA-3Gb-s-vs-6Gb-s-Cable-Performance-Revisited-183/

Regarding your propossed card, seems barely the same (same chipset, etc) as the one I bought (and returned ).

 

[13thmonkey]

I returned the card, so I cannot re-test. But seems very strange that the problem is the cable :-?

It should be the same to use a sata-ii or sata-iii cable:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/SATA-3Gb-s-vs-6Gb-s-Cable-Performance-Revisited-183/

Regarding your propossed card, seems barely the same (same chipset, etc) as the one I bought (and returned ).

Some sata II cables can get away with sata iii speeds, some will not. There are cables tested to sata iii standards.

 

[boosted1g]

If your motherboard has PCI 3.0 ports then you must have SATA III ports nativly on the motherboard.

Why cant you use that for the SSD and plug theother devices into a sata card and then it wont matter one bit if it is sata II or III for magnetic HDD or optical drives.

 

[romansoft]

I want to do PCI passthru (VT-d) of original controller to a VM (ESXi) because I'm building a virtualized NAS (xpenology).

So I need a new controller for the "OS Disk" + VMs and it should be fast.