Question

PCIe x1 vs x4 Bandwidth (for eSATA II)

Asked by: tvacc

I'm looking to attach an eSATA II drive to my system for backup (3Gb/s). Do I need a x1 or x4 PCIe card to get full speeds out of this drive?

Any recommendations on card manufacturer?

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Asked On
2009-03-12 at 15:25:13ID24225983
Tags

eSATA card

,

PCIe

,

PCI-E

,

PCIe x4

,

PCIe x1

,

eSATA

Topics

Hardware Components

,

Miscellaneous Hardware

,

Storage Technology

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: CallandorPosted on 2009-03-12 at 17:49:40ID: 23875256

An x1 lane supports 250MB/sec data transfer, which is much higher than the maximum sustained throughput of a typical hard drive - around 70-100MB/sec.  The 3Gb/sec interface rate can only be sustained for data in the buffer, which would empty out in a fraction of a second.

 

by: SysExpertPosted on 2009-03-13 at 13:36:45ID: 23883289

Almost any SATA card with an eSATA connection will work fine, even PCI cards should be OK, since you rarely get the full rated speed on a 7200 RPM drive.

If using a 10K drive use x1 PCI-e and you should be fine.

 I hope this helps !

 

by: PCBONEZPosted on 2009-03-14 at 06:42:53ID: 23886793

What they both said is true.
The exact 'why' is that the sustained transfer rate is limited by the head-disk transfer rate and not the interface.
You may hit 3GB/sec but only for a fraction of a second [until the buffer is full] then the bottleneck of the head-disk activity will limit you to 70-100MB/sec or so depending on the drive.

If you have a full 3GB/sec interface speed and a 16Mb buffer then the buffer will be full in 0.0053 seconds.
After that the head-disk transfer rate is the speed limiting factor.

.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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