Solved Mini PCIe and adapter VS. SATA

[ChrisPbass]

I have a mini pcie mSATA card that I want to use for a desktop of mine. Kingston sm200s3 60GB

I believe there are only 2 options.
1. SATA > SATA adapter > mSATA card
2. PCIe slot > PCI adapter > mSATA card.

As far as 2. goes; I have found a card that fits into a PCIe slot which has an input for the mSATA card.

I know that this is not the ideal way to hook up the card but I don't see any more options.

Which is there better way to go or what am I missing?

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Whatever has an mSATA interface for it will work.

From here SSD Kingston 60GB SM200S3/60G mSATA p/ Ultrabook,tablet - Atera Informática

its a SATA 3 device, so for optimal performance you should use something that can guarantee enough bandwith to not bottleneck it.

PCIe bandwith depends from number of lanes used (a x1 card has one lane, a x2 card has two and so on) and the PCIe revision/version of both devices. The panel on the right here gives all speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express so just multiply that by the number of lanes the card has and you will find out its bandwith. SATA 3 has 6 GB/s of theoretical max bandwith, although actual transfer speed does not go above 1 GB/s afaik.

This Mini PCIe PCI E mSATA Intel Samsung SSD SATA 3 III Adapter Card with Case | eBay

this SATA III Dual Port to mSATA X 2 w/ PCI-e Bracket | MSATA-2XS3-BKT

are examples of what you listed as 1, and stuff I would orient myself towards if my mobo had SATA 3 connectors already. Because... hey, why waste PCIe slots for that?

 

[ChrisPbass]

Whatever has an mSATA interface for it will work.

From here SSD Kingston 60GB SM200S3/60G mSATA p/ Ultrabook,tablet - Atera Informática

its a SATA 3 device, so for optimal performance you should use something that can guarantee enough bandwith to not bottleneck it.

PCIe bandwith depends from number of lanes used (a x1 card has one lane, a x2 card has two and so on) and the PCIe revision/version of both devices. The panel on the right here gives all speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express so just multiply that by the number of lanes the card has and you will find out its bandwith. SATA 3 has 6 GB/s of theoretical max bandwith, although actual transfer speed does not go above 1 GB/s afaik.

This Mini PCIe PCI E mSATA Intel Samsung SSD SATA 3 III Adapter Card with Case | eBay

this SATA III Dual Port to mSATA X 2 w/ PCI-e Bracket | MSATA-2XS3-BKT

are examples of what you listed as 1, and stuff I would orient myself towards if my mobo had SATA 3 connectors already. Because... hey, why waste PCIe slots for that?

The dtop is a home server that will function as a file server for our small home business and will also backup 2 or 3 PCs. I am currently not using any PCIe slots as the graphics and NIC is integrated.
I have 4 sata connections available. I have 3 hard drives at this point (7 TB) so I probably won't go above that and need anymore SATA connections.
Thanks for all the info! Totally appreciated.

I was going to use this card if I went PCIe
Amazon.com: mSATA Mini PCI-E SATA 3.0 SSD & SATA 3.0 Combo to PCI-E PCI Express Card 6.0Gbps, ASMEDIA ASM1061: Computers & Accessories

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Ok, that card can give the speed you require (one lane of PCIe 3.0 is around 1 GB/s READ and 1 GB/s WRITE, at the same time). As long as you aren't using other devices connected to the same card anyway. BUT, PCIe speed depends from both the device and the motherboard slot.

Now the investigation goes on the slot you are putting that card in (check the mobo manual). Is it a PCIe 3.0 slot too? If it is a PCIe 2.0 slot the card will be forced to work at 2.0 speeds, and bottleneck you down to 500 MB/s.

Although for a home server OS disk this should not be a major issue as once the thing has booted it will keep all it needs in RAM anyway and the changes to the OS will be rare (most of the fun happens in the data storage drives).
I routinely get away with a decent USB pendrive or a SD card as the OS disk for the linux home servers I set up (with ridiculously crappy hardware).

 

[ChrisPbass]

Ok, that card can give the speed you require (one lane of PCIe 3.0 is around 1 GB/s READ and 1 GB/s WRITE, at the same time). As long as you aren't using other devices connected to the same card anyway. BUT, PCIe speed depends from both the device and the motherboard slot.

Now the investigation goes on the slot you are putting that card in (check the mobo manual). Is it a PCIe 3.0 slot too? If it is a PCIe 2.0 slot the card will be forced to work at 2.0 speeds, and bottleneck you down to 500 MB/s.

Although for a home server OS disk this should not be a major issue as once the thing has booted it will keep all it needs in RAM anyway and the changes to the OS will be rare (most of the fun happens in the data storage drives).
I routinely get away with a decent USB pendrive or a SD card as the OS disk for the linux home servers I set up (with ridiculously crappy hardware).

Compliant with Serial ATA III specification.
Data transfer rate up to 6.0Gbps.
Compliant with Single-Lane (x1) PCI Express specification revision 1.0.
Supports 27mm half-height & 50mm full-height mSATA Mini PCI-E SASTA SSD.
Supports two independent SATA channels.
Supports ATAPI devices: CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc.
Supports boot function.
Supports hot swapping.
One 7 pin SATA & one 52 pin mSATA connectors available.
2 screws & 4 holes available for fixing mSATA drive.
Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 & Server 2003/2008.
Please note that it supports mSATA Mini PCI-E SATA SSD only. It does NOT supports Mini PCI-E (PATA), 1.8" Micro SATA & Airbook SSD.
Package content:
1X Brand New mSATA & SATA 3.0 Combo PCI-E Card.
1X CD Driver.

 

[ChrisPbass]

My next task is setting up a linux home server on a crappy PC

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Ummm, why you copy-pasted the specs of the card? I know how to read lol.

I said you need to look at the motherboard specs. If you place a PCIe 3.0 card in a PCIe 2.0 slot, the link will go at PCIe 2.0 speeds.

The mobo should have a name or a code written on it, post it or google it to get the specs from the manufacturer's site.

 

[ChrisPbass]

APUFM1 Socket:

1. AMD A series & E2 series processors
2. AMD Athlon™ II series processors/AMD Sempron™ series processors

(Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.) Chipset

1. AMD A75 chipset

Memory

1. 2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 64 GB of system memory (Note 1)* The maximum 64 GB of system memory can be supported using 16 GB (or above) memory modules. GIGABYTE will update the memory support list on the official website when the memory modules are available on the market.
2. Dual channel memory architecture
3. Support for DDR3 2400 (O.C.)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

(Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.) Onboard GraphicsAPU:

1. 1 x D-Sub port
2. 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 (Note 2)

(All integrated graphics ports do not support Hot plug. If you want to change to another graphics port when the computer is on, be sure to turn off the computer first.) Audio

1. Realtek HD audio codec
2. High Definition Audio
3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel (Note 3)
4. Support for S/PDIF Out

LAN

1. Realtek GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

Expansion Slots

1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16
2. 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (All PCI Express slots conform to the PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
3. 1 x PCI slot

Multi-Graphics Technology

1. Support for AMD Dual Graphics technologyOnly A series APUs support AMD Dual Graphics.

Storage InterfaceChipset:

1. 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors supporting up to 4 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2. Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and JBOD

USBChipset:

1. Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)
2. Up to 4 USB 3.0/2/0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB headers)

Internal I/O Connectors

1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
2. 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
3. 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
4. 1 x APU fan header
5. 1 x system fan header
6. 1 x front panel header
7. 1 x front panel audio header
8. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
9. 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
10. 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
11. 1 x clear CMOS jumper

Back Panel Connectors

1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
2. 1 x D-Sub port
3. 1 x DVI-D port
4. 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
5. 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
6. 1 x RJ-45 port
7. 3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

I/O Controller

1. iTE I/O Controller Chip

H/W Monitoring

1. System voltage detection
2. APU/System temperature detection
3. APU/System fan speed detection
4. APU overheating warning
5. APU/System fan fail warning
6. APU/System fan speed control (Note 4)

BIOS

1. 2 x 32 Mbit flash
2. Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
3. Support for DualBIOS™
4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b

 

[bobafetthotmail]

In the above text, I see the folllowing:

All PCI Express slots conform to the PCI Express 2.0 standard.

so it will run at max 500 MB/s of transfer speed TO and FROM the device at the same time, which is probably close to the maximum speed the drive can actually move files at in a real scenario. PCIe has little overhead so that's very close to the speed you will get.

For a home server is it's not a major issue either way, as stated above. But if it was for gaming... nope!

 

[ChrisPbass]

Cool. Thank you for the education.

 

[ChrisPbass]

I know what I need but I'm not quite sure how to search for it. I keep coming up with enclosures for hard drives.

If I get the SATA adapter I'm getting a bare 2.5" card. It seems like I need an enclosure to mount it in the hard drive cage. I assume that's where it would go.

Any ideas?

 

[ChrisPbass]

Afterall this I think I'm going to eat the return costs of the mSATA card and just get a regular SSD drive. The cost of adapters, while not much, negates the return cost.

Thanks for your help!

 

[bobafetthotmail]

I still think that a SSD is a waste of money on a home server OS drive, especially if you plan to use Linux.

A server OS does not need to do anything that requires fast OS-disk access, because once it is booted all the stuff it needs is loaded in RAM (in case it does not do it automatically, there are daemons like Preload that work like Windows 7's prefetching and load stuff you use often in RAM). And you don't reboot so often a server, don't you?

I'd say to try with a USB drive first. I see more performance in adding more RAM (up to 4 GB, more if you do a software RAID as that likes to have a gig or two for caching and stuff) than adding a SSD.

I know what I need but I'm not quite sure how to search for it. I keep coming up with enclosures for hard drives.

"Sata 3 mSATA" is what I used to find those things.

 

[z3r010]

I still think that a SSD is a waste of money on a home server OS drive, especially if you plan to use Linux.

A server OS does not need to do anything that requires fast OS-disk access, because once it is booted all the stuff it needs is loaded in RAM (in case it does not do it automatically, there are daemons like Preload that work like Windows 7's prefetching and load stuff you use often in RAM). And you don't reboot so often a server, don't you?

I was of that mind when I built my new home server a few months ago, I started with a 2TB spinner in it but I've got so used to not hearing drives that it bugged me every time it spun up and it didn't last two days before I replaced it with a silent 1TB SSD