Need a eSATA II PCI card -anyone find one?

[fray_bentos]

I have a new eSATA II external hard drive and an ExpressCard to connect it to my laptop but I need to connect it to my desktop too, which only has PCI and not PCI-Express.

I have looked on Scan but no definite success, there is a Lycom card (Scan code LN23514) and a non-raid version of the same card LN24295 - But one says the eSATA is 1.5 Gbps and the other 3Gbps so not sure on if they're both 1.5 or 3.0.

Amazon have one but the lack of information makes me want to know more before i order one.

Can anyone find a PCI eSATAII card please?

[madman045]

I would email the supplier first to double check it meets your requirements, however this should do the job

http://www.lambda-tek.com/components...&prodID=B65862

Actually that reads as a sata external card, from what I have found, only PCI-E cards are Sata II compliant, the PCI card are only Sata I

[fray_bentos]

ok, that seems to be a good find. The manufacturer website is not so sure on the specification, the webpage says 3.0Gbps but the datasheet only mentions 1.5Gbps. So if anyone can suggest any more I'd be grateful.

madman045 have you used lambdatek before or was it just a search that brought them up?

[fray_bentos]

Hmm, so I believe that the PCI bus will move ~130 megabytes/sec - so if that is the case a eSATAII at 3Gbps would make no difference and would explain why only eSATA at 1.5Gbps cards are available for PCI - because they couldn't get any faster anyway.

Does that sound sensible?

[madman045]

Yes we use Lambdatek all the time and have never had a problem with them

[CaptainCrash]

Hmm, so I believe that the PCI bus will move ~130 megabytes/sec - so if that is the case a eSATAII at 3Gbps would make no difference and would explain why only eSATA at 1.5Gbps cards are available for PCI - because they couldn't get any faster anyway.

Does that sound sensible?

Correct, the PCI bus tops out at 133MB/sec (shared amongst all the devices using it), so a PCI eSATAII card would be completely pointless.

In practice, there are very few drives that can approach even this figure (the limiting factor is the mechanicals rather than the theoretical maximum speed of the interface), so the point is somewhat moot in any case.

[fray_bentos]

Thanks CaptainCrash, I wanted to check that; some things seem perfectly correct when I think them until someone disagrees - then I have to rethink!