InLine Mini-PCIe card 2x SATA 6Gbs

rio9210 · Feb 9, 2014

Hi to all.

I found this card googling around, but looks like nobody knows anything about what chip it mounts and if it's supported by FreeBSD. Could be a RENESAS chip, because I found some mini-PCIe to USB cards from the same German producer: http://www.inline-info.de/en/inline-det ... ikel/8539/, that uses Renesas chips. The price is arround 20-22 euro, really cheap, and the next price step is 55-60 euro, the "StarTech.com MPEXSATA22": http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Expr ... B004NNRRN8, based on a (basically supported, as far as I read on the forum) Silicon Image SiI3132.

Any experiences out here with the InLine card (or chip)?

wblock@ · Feb 9, 2014

It's worth mailing the vendor and asking them either for the brand and model of the controller chip, or a good picture. Sometimes they have high-res pictures for ads.

The Sil3132 is okay. That particular Startech board seems highly overpriced.

rio9210 · Feb 10, 2014

I've managed to find that the InLine card mounts an Asmedia 1061 chip. Who's this "guy"?

trh411 · Feb 10, 2014

rio9210 said:
I've managed to find that the InLine card mounts an Asmedia 1061 chip. Who's this "guy"?

They are a Taiwanese company: ASMedia. I have no familiarity with any of their chips. At least that I know of. I don't see any ASMedia chips listed on the FreeBSD hardware list.

EDIT: Here is a little info on the 1061

wblock@ · Feb 10, 2014

People here have reported the 1061 working: https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=37316&p=206611.

trh411 · Feb 10, 2014

wblock@ said:
People here have reported the 1061 working: https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=37316&p=206611.

Interesting. Upon a recheck of the Hardware List I found the following single statement:

Code:

The ahci(4) driver supports AHCI compatible controllers having PCI class 1 (mass storage), subclass 6 (SATA) and programming interface 1 (AHCI).

No specific manufacturer devices are listed for this driver, but per @wblock@'s reference, the ahci(4) driver supports the ASMedia 1061.

rio9210 · Feb 10, 2014

Turns out that As(s)media chip is better than expected... However, I've found REALLY BAD things about the SiliconImage 3132 here:

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.p ... ard_Drives

look for "SiI3132", the fourth result. Maybe I'll give a chance to Asmedia, after all, but SiI3132 is out of game FOREVER.

wblock@ · Feb 11, 2014

The firmware on the Sil3132 can be reflashed with a non-RAID function. That's actually the only way I've ever used them. ZFS or gmirror(8) mean you don't have to trust cheap RAID firmware.