Hi,

I'm looking into using a PCI ATA controller, like this one by Promise. I have read here on the forum that the Highpoint ATA 133 equivalent is recommended due to better linux support. Does anyone have any experience (good/bad) with either card?

The hardware: an 'old' Gateway Performance 500M, with Pentium III 500Mhz cpu, Intel 440BX 100Mhz bus, ATA 66 (2 X 20GB hdd, one IBM (master) and one Maxtor (slave)), 256MB SDRAM

The reason I want to try it this way, besides increasing storage capacity and reducing noise, is because the current drives are Ultra DMA mode 2. Is it possible to get more speed through the pci interface?

My intention is also to get rid of both ATA 66 drives and use the pci ATA controller only, if there is indeed any extra speed. Will installing GNU/Linux work in that case? Any distro in particular recommended? Are there other factors to consider? Also please let me know if none of this makes any sense

Thanks in advance,

JJ

"I'm looking into using a PCI ATA controller, like this one by Promise. I have read here on the forum that the Highpoint ATA 133 equivalent is recommended due to better linux support. Does anyone have any experience (good/bad) with either card?"

I had so much trouble with a Promise ATA 100 chipset that I threw it away and bought a High Point ATA 100 controller. Search the forum for posts by jailbait and the keyword promise and you will find a lot of discussion on the problems with Promise.

"The reason I want to try it this way, besides increasing storage capacity and reducing noise, is because the current drives are Ultra DMA mode 2. Is it possible to get more speed through the pci interface?"

Probably not using your current drives but you can with drives that match the higher speed of your new controller.

"My intention is also to get rid of both ATA 66 drives and use the pci ATA controller only, if there is indeed any extra speed. Will installing GNU/Linux work in that case? Any distro in particular recommended? Are there other factors to consider?"

One thing to consider is whether you can boot from a secondary controller. Both your motherboard bios and the secondary controller must support this feature. I think that the High Point bios supports this feature but I have never tried it.

Another thing to consider is how may independent paths you have to your drives. If you have one drive per cable then you can access all drives in parallel. If you have two drives on one cable then you can only access one at a time.

All in all you might want to keep an ATA 66 drive on the motherboard controller. It would have a bootloader on the MBR and otherwise only be used as storage space for very inactive files.

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Steve Stites

Many thanks for the advice (and quick reply!)
I think I'll follow your suggestion and get the Highpoint version, and keep one ATA 66 drive.

Thanks again.

JJ