Add on ESATA ports.... (like Fiire Station does)

[jondecker76]

Does anybody know what card the Fiire Engine uses to add its external ESATA ports?

I am building my core right now, and need to find an esata card with 6 ports that works with linux.

Also, while on this subject..
I want to start out with 4 1TB drives raid5. Since my M2NPV-VM mobo only has 4 SATA connections, I was thinking that I should house these separately through an ESATA card, and have LMCE installed on a local drive inside the core (wouldn't this make updating easier, having the data and the OS separate?)

ANy advice would be appreciated...

[1audio]

The ESATA ports on the Fiire Station are extension cables from the motherboard. No card involved.

[jondecker76]

Are you sure about that? The M2NPV-VM only has 4 sata ports.
The Fiire website states that the Fiire Station comes with a 160GB internal drive for the OS and 6 ESATA ports on the back - so they must be using some kind of host card...

[1audio]

I'll check. When I last looked at the assembly there was no card. You are right about only 4 ports on the board.

[jondecker76]

Thanks, I appreciate your time

[blackoper]

just use two esata ports and use a port multiplier on the external drive array that would give you six. Linux kernel 2.6.24 that was released a few days ago supports port multipliers out of the box
You'd need to get a Pci-e sil31x series card

[jondecker76]

Thanks - too bad we can't get that kernel into the official 7.10

I'll start shopping for some port multipliers

[1audio]

I thought the support for port multipliers started with 2.6.22. I'll need to wait longer for that card to work? Drat.

[blackoper]

it actually started in 2.6.18 ( I was an early adopter) but you have to patch and custom compile the kernels. 2.6.24 is the first one with pm support built in

[ddamron]

BTW, I can CONFIRM all the eSATA ports on the Fiire Engine are connected to the motherboard.

HTH

Dan

[jondecker76]

do you have 4 or 6 esata ports on the back? 

[grepico]

I have a Fiire engine and the eSATA ports are simply extensions coming off the SATA ports on the motherboard.  If you want to add more, you simply need to get another SATA adapter and the eSata cables.  Should be pretty much plug and play.