Peripherals USB to SATA to PCIe adapter(s)

Hi chaps,

Had a quick question regarding a basic build I'm cobbling together out of old and new parts, so a mixture of bus speeds and adapters going in. Excuse the vagueness but I haven't got all the bits with me at the moment so I'm putting these details down from memory, but the essentials are there.

I have:

• SSD SATA III = 600 MB/s
• USB 3.0 (625 MB/s) to attach via PCIe 2.0 x1 internal card = 500 MB/s

and these slots:

• 1x PCIe 1.0 x16 = 4000 MB/s
• 2x 32-bit PCI = 133 MB/s
• 4x Native SATA II ports = 300 MB/s

Now, I kept adding to this project, which is why I've got so many disparate parts, but the original plan had:

• SSD (600 MB/s) on SATA II socket (300 MB/s) = 300 MB/s tfr rate
• USB 3.0 card (500MB/s) on PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (4000 MB/s) = 500 MB/s tfr rate

This isn't going to be a graphically-intensive PC, just a relatively quick browsing machine and basic workstation, hence the use of the x16 slot for the USB card and some compromises around the speed bottlenecks. However, I'm now thinking it might do to put the SSD on the x16 slot, giving a tfr rate closer to its potential 600 MB/s, so my questions are then:

• Are either of the above worth doing?
• Is there a way of connecting a SATAIII SSD to a PCIe 1.0 slot? I haven't found a PCIe x2 or x4 adapter
• Is there a way of connecting USB 3.0 to a SATA II port, to at least achieve 300 MB/s?
• What are the alternatives, given the limitations imposed by sockets and available adapters?

There are valid reasons this build has taken the shape it has, so aside from adapters, I don't especially want to be buying any more kit.

Thanks in advance!

 

I would just leave the SSD on one of your native SATA ports. The speed difference between SATA II and III is only noticeable in benchmarks really. I've got a SATA III SSD on my SATA II ports and it feels just as fast as any other PC with an SSD in it.

Most SATA III adapters are based around a Marvell chipset too which isn't that fast and doesn't support TRIM if I remember correctly.

 

Nice one, Lancer - thanks for the input.

Will go ahead with the original plan, in that case.

 

This is a x4 adapter.

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Accessories/U3S6/

 

Cheers cdb, but from reading that it seems to be a PCIe 2 adapter, sadly.

 

Iirc, the adapter will just run at pci-e 1 speeds. Also not sure if a windows install will boot from a drive attached via the pci bus, I think it would have to be attached via a sata controller. Although that could just be those fancy pci-e ssd cards.

 

Ah - good point about the SATA port. Now that you say that, I do remember reading somewhere that it has to be a special card to boot from PCI. I think that was one of the selling points of the OCZ Revo drives.

About the speeds, though - will a x4 PCIe 2.0 card still run at x4 PCIe 1.0?

 

Yes, I beleive them to be back compatable. Iirc 2.1 MAY cause problems but 2.0 is fine.