XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

I'm looking at PCI IDE cards on Ebay. I see mostly Promise and Adaptec.
I need one with a BIOS that can boot the drive connected to the card.

Any recommendation?

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XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 10:27:11 -0600, Grant Taylor wrote:

I'm looking at PCI IDE cards on Ebay. I see mostly Promise and Adaptec.
I need one with a BIOS that can boot the drive connected to the card.

I've used cards from both Promise and Adaptec in the past. I think it
really depends what features you are wanting. If you just want a basic
IDE controller, then Promise cards are likely more economical. If you
want something that does hardware RAID such that the OS only sees the
logical RAID drive, then Adaptec is probably the way to go.

I'm looking at Adaptec ASH-1233. I don't think it's RAID. but I don't
need that. $10 and free shipping. Apparently uses CMD / SIL 0680 chip,
which some people praise.

"CMD0680A still rocks in my books. Probably one of the best PATA
chipsets ever released"

http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php?/topic/26181-adaptec-ash-1233-bios/

I found updated BIOS 3.4.0.0 here:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=41462

Some cards worked best with the onboard IDE channels disabled and
re-using those addresses. Others could work in tandem with them.

It really depends on what your use case is.

My Asus P3V4X IDE works, but has high interrupt latency under DOS. I
want to disable that, and use the add-in card only.

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XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

On 7/13/19 9:26 AM, T. Ment wrote:

I'm looking at PCI IDE cards on Ebay. I see mostly Promise and Adaptec.
I need one with a BIOS that can boot the drive connected to the card.

Any recommendation?

I've used cards from both Promise and Adaptec in the past. I think it
really depends what features you are wanting. If you just want a basic
IDE controller, then Promise cards are likely more economical. If you
want something that does hardware RAID such that the OS only sees the
logical RAID drive, then Adaptec is probably the way to go.

I an fairly certain that 3Ware (?) played in this market space too. I
want to say that they had add in cards that had four IDE channels. Thus combining with the two onboard IDE channels, you could have 12 IDE (master+slave) drives in the system. I have no idea what sort of
addressing is used or what drivers are required.

Some cards worked best with the onboard IDE channels disabled and
re-using those addresses. Others could work in tandem with them.

It really depends on what your use case is.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

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XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 17:10:06 +0000, T. Ment wrote:

I'm looking at Adaptec ASH-1233 ... Apparently uses CMD / SIL 0680 chip
I found updated BIOS 3.4.0.0 here:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=41462

I also wanted to know some BIOS history.

The Wayback machine for www.siliconimage.com has no BIOS that I could
find. But with google and hours of reading web forums, I found:


https://club.myce.com/t/ide-controllers-the-definitive-thread/81345/430

containing a download link to:

http://yadi.sk/d/z3w2tHFg7hv44

which is an archive of sil680 BIOS, drivers, info, and the chip data
sheet. I was surprised to find it, most web forum download links don't
last that long.

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XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

On Sun, 14 Jul 2019 18:01:58 +0000, T. Ment wrote:

Adaptec ASH-1233 ... Apparently uses CMD / SIL 0680 chip

I also wondered about the CMD / SIL connection. They say:


http://www.ecworld.ru/news/arh/evnte01/e70601.htm

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 7, 2001 -- Silicon Image, Inc. (Nasdaq: SIMG),
a price/performance leader in high-bandwidth semiconductor solutions
for mass markets, today announced it has acquired CMD Technology, Inc.
(Irvine, Calif.), an established provider of high-performance and
high-availability storage solutions that serve as the building blocks
for Storage Area Networks (SANs). With this acquisition, Silicon Image
accelerates its move into the Serial ATA segment of the storage market


It helps to know some history.

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XPost: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 17:10:06 +0000, T. Ment wrote:

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 10:27:11 -0600, Grant Taylor wrote:

I'm looking at PCI IDE cards on Ebay. I see mostly Promise and Adaptec.
I need one with a BIOS that can boot the drive connected to the card.

I've used cards from both Promise and Adaptec in the past. I think it >>really depends what features you are wanting.

I'm looking at Adaptec ASH-1233. I don't think it's RAID. but I don't
need that. $10 and free shipping. Apparently uses CMD / SIL 0680 chip,
which some people praise.

I got the Adatptec card. It had a 3.2.10 BIOS. The interrupt latency is
high and the copy performance is poor.

I tried updflash with the latest BIOS, 3.4.0.0. It didn't recognize the
flash chip but gave me a list to choose from. I picked a PMC in the same family. As with my sil3114 card adventures, updflash said it failed. But
when I rebooted, it had the new bios. Weird.

The 3.4.0.0 BIOS fixed the latency problem, but the file copy took 4
times as long. They clearly did not care about supporting DOS. All they
wanted was a BIOS good enough to get booted into Windows where the
device driver takes over. I didn't bother with Windows, but the linux performance seemed fine.

Their DOS device driver won't even load with the 3.4.0.0 BIOS. With the
older 3.2.10 it loads, but makes performance even worse. The DOS device
driver is dated 2001 and the 3.2.10 BIOS is dated 2003. That says they
cared little about DOS support..

I also got a Maxtor/Promise ATA133. It works well in DOS. Low latency
and fast copy.

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