Hi folks.

Situation: Came across a bunch of several scrapped 2,5' HDD's, but at test - most of them are in working condition.

I also sit with some old piece of hardware, mid-tower with an aging Athlon 4400+ CPU still going strong (I built this thing back in 2005 or '06) - so I was thinking to re-use this as a secondary backup (test) system at home. However, I intend to pack a lot more HDD in the mid-tower than the mobo support.
Therefore, I'was searching ebay for PCI-SATA adapters (search link).

And then the question arise : How can I know in advance (before purchase) what models that is supported by Linux (assume latest Linux Mint) ?

edit/Info: I don't need hw raid solution for this.

Am I the first to Post on this?

My suggestion is to junk your old m/b, buy an AMD m/b with their cheapest current cpu and it gives you 4 sata double channels. I have one with an AM4 socket. Although AM5 is out, you don't need it, but that AM4 hardware will be cheap now.

Don't worry about drivers for 20 year old stuff. Linux support all the old 32bit s*** that was ever built. Maybe Mint doesn't, but linux does. On the latest non-standard gear they have issues with for a year or so, e.g. Apple-M2 graphics, & Realtek wifi. There are still drivers for the Via MPV3, & SiS 6326 from the last millenium, possibly two of the worst chipsets ever built.

There's a huge difference between PCI, & PCIE. PCI is addressed in parallel by a bus from the Southbridge, and is best thought of at this stage as an ISA card on steroids. 32bit wide data in multiples of 33Mhz. PCIE is addressed by very high-speed pcie serial lanes (straight from the pc?) and is the new generation of gear. The more connected lanes, the more throughput. It's just not possible to wire a 64bit bus around the place at the speeds things are doing now. As someone who has laid out pcbs, you get headaches even thinking about it. Your link is to pcie cards. What has your board got?

"Athlon 4400+" looks like a non existing CPU. Do you mean "AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+"?

Which mainboard model is in use?

If this mainboard provides a PCIe x1 or PCIe x4 slot it's highly recommended to use this slot for an additional SATA 3.0 GB/s controller.

Many PCI SATA controllers work this Linux, but they slow down SATA speed to PCI bus speed. Therefore PCI SATA controllers should only be used in ancient computers without PCIe slots.

Nah, I already have several old computers collecting dust, putting them to use is actually a goal in itself.

Ok taht is good to hear. I'm not locked to one specific distro. If Debian support it, I use Debian, if Open Suse support it, etc . . .

Thanks for your explanation, yes I know 32bit PCI are slower, but this is not intended to be some high end stuff - I'm well aware the hardware will be the bottleneck when transferring files.

Thanks for pointing this out. Must be the ebay filter function not working properly. The mobo only have PCI 32bit variant. I don't remember the mobo name right now, Lanparty something, bought in 2005 I think.




Yes, you're correct - thank you.

I don't remember just now, but it's a variant that have limited amounts of sata ports.

I'll say the hardware in question is on the brink of become ancient. It doesn't have neither PCIe x1 or PCIe x4, only PCI (32 bit) and AGP.

EDIT: This motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939

This mainboard isn't on the brink of become ancient. Without any PCIe slots, it has passed the brink and is ancient.

If you insert 4 GiB RAM – and you want this – mainboard chipset may limit memory speed to PC-333. Successing nForce 4 chipset (here on a socket 939 mainboard "Asus A8N5X") do this.

If the four onboard SATA ports are not enough a PCI-SATA-controller-card "Promise SATA 300 TX4" may be a good choice. Support is included in the Linux kernel. This card provides four SATA 3.0 GB/s ports. SATA 6.0 GB/s HDDs & SSDs works with this card.

Avoid PCI-SATA-controller-cards with SATA 1.5 GB/s chips. These controllers often cause problems with SATA 3.0 GB/s & 6.0 GB/s drives.
Avoid PCI-SATA-controller-cards with VIA SATA chips. Bugs & incompatibilities may occur with them.

If you have an old computer that's a little bit newer than your socket 939 based machine think about using this. An old machine equipped with an Intel Core2Quad or an AMD Phenom X4 and 8 GiB DDR-2 RAM would give a performance boost in comparison to a socket 939 based machine. Even a socket AM2 based machine equipped with an AMD Athlon64 X2 would give better performance because it provides SATA 3.0 GB/s ports and at minimum one PCIe x1 slot.

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FWIW I've had no problems on a similarly old system with SATA controllers based around the Silicon Image 311x family (3112, 3114, etc), and that includes with relatively modern/large drives. Performance is what it is - you're looking at a relatively dated platform after all - but depending on your use-case it may be good enough, and the Athlon64 chips will handle 64-bit distros just fine. Something to keep in mind on this system - there's no IGP, so you'll need an AGP or PCI video card of some sort - I would suggest a Radeon because the open source driver is both A) still actively maintained and B) easier to live with imho.

try Tom's Hardware for purchase advice.

You want "HCL" (hardware compatibility lists). If it doesn't have one: your gonna be disappointed.

ubuntu is wrecked by chinese german domination hacks: expect they will strong arm you into "buying products they are behind"

SEARCH GOOGLE. check advanced options like "VERBOSE"

WHAT DO YOU SEARCH FOR: COMPLAINTS AND QUESTIONS ABOUT HARDWARE NOT WORKING.

what would you LIKE to find? idiots who bought what your thinking of buying and the "solution" is one your aptly familiar with.

HCL and logos time...

i boughta WIFI THUMB. Linux logo on box. in HCL. advertising google results seemed good

i found hours and hours after painful work: THEY LIED

the chip in the thumb was NOT one supported by the driver that does work in linux

YOU GOT 30 DAY RETURN (in USA). use it quickly is my advice.

I'd think first issue is bios able to use this card.

SATA kernel modules available in your installation are /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/ata/sata*. List of hardware supported by each module can be found in lkddb (https://cateee.net/lkddb/)

I find the way to go is grab the usb id from any suspicious wifi and websearch it.
Nearly everything except new realtek is supported. On sale, of course, are the newest realtek. So I never buy the fastest speeds. My internet connection speed is a sensible limit unless you're using wifi for internal networking with large transfers. Once you search out slower Realtek ones, even they usually have support. I prefer Atheros if I can find it.