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January 26, 2007
Four Drive SATA PCI-X Multilane Solution
Review: Addonics 4x SATA Multilane PCI-X Host Adapter for Macintosh (ADS3GX4R5-MLM)
By Arthur Whalem
Addonics is shipping a 4x SATA Multilane PCI-X controller ($99.99) with an external multilane connector that supports four bay multilane enclosures. The model number for the version of this card that supports Apple PowerMac PCI-X computers is ADS3GX4R5-MLM. PowerMac G4 or G5 computers with Mac OS X 10.4.x installed can utilize the external multilane port of the ADS3GX4R5-MLM to connect with any external multilane enclosure. One advantage the multilane cable system provides is the ability to connect up to four hard drives using a single cable without using a port multiplier. A normal direct connect SATA enclosure requires four SATA data cables instead. In addition, the Infiniband Multilane 4X cable (AAIB4C150) is 59" long which allows users to locate the enclosure farther away from the computer.
There are several SATA multilane enclosures that work with the ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter. Addonics sells the Storage Tower ($149.95) model ST4SAML which is configured with a multilane connector. Multilane users will also need an Infiniband Multilane 4X cable ($79). If you already own an Addonics Storage Tower you can install the Addonics 4x Multilane bridge model AD4SAML ($29) and convert the enclosure to multilane usage.During this review, an original Apple PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz with an Addonics 4x SATA Multilane PCI-X controller model ADS3GX4R5-MLM was used to evaluate how this multilane SATA host adapter would perform with a Macintosh computer.
System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.4.x
Compatible with PowerMac G4 PCI and G5 with PCI-X.
Compliant with PCI-X bus version 1.0a.
Supports 133 MHz PCI-X with 64-bit data.
SATA I and II compliant.
Requires external SATA hard drive(s) and a Multilane enclosure.
Requires Infiniband Multilane 4X cable data cable.
Requires installation of SiI-3124 Mac driver version 2.0.3.
Install
The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM Multilane SATA host adapter can be placed in any available PCI or PCI-X slot within a PowerMac G4 or G5. If you are installing the ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter in a PowerMac G5 with PCI-X, installing the card in slot #4 (the top slot) which supports 64-bit, 133 MHz will provide the best performance. The image below shows the card being installed in slot #4.
image courtesy of Apple
If you will be using the ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter in a PowerMac G5, you may want to read the Apple Tech Q&A 1307 concerning the Power Mac G5 PCI and PCI-X slots. It states," Slots 2 & 3 share a common bus. Slot 4 is on a separate bus. All cards on a common bus can only run as fast as the slowest card". If I only planned to use one ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter, I would install it in slot four. It will run a little faster than if it is installed in slot 2 or 3.
The image above displays how the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM looks in System Profiler when two cards are installed in slots 3 and 4. It is labeled as a "3132" card. However, the associated description box provides a name of "pci1095.3124". To get the ADS3GX4R5-MLM to show up in the Mac OS X System Profiler PCI cards list, users will need to install the SiI-3124 Mac driver version 2.0.3.
Features
The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM SATA host adapter supports up to four hard drives using a single Infiniband Multilane 4X data cable. It supports deep sleep, hot swap and works with Disk Utility to erase hard drives or create RAID sets with a Macintosh computer. The ADS3GX4R5-MLM is a 64-bit SATA host adapter that is designed to be used with external enclosures that .support a multilane connector.
The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM does not provide boot support and it does not pass SMART data to Mac OS X for use with Hardware Monitor or Disk Utility. The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM provides SATA hard drive performance that is usually a little faster than when using a SATA port multiplier configuration.
Controller & Hard DrivesThe Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM SATA host adapter utilizes the Silicon Image SiI 3124-2CB364 controller chip. It provides Serial ATA 3.0 Gbps and 1.5 Gbps support and is compliant with SATA 1.0, and ATA, SATA II extensions to SATA 1.0. The SiI 3124 chip provides port multiplier compatibility with FIS-based switching. However, the multilane bridge board inside four bay enclosures typically does not support SATA PM compatibility. Instead, each hard drive is configured in a direct connect formation. The controller supports up to 4MB of external flash, Native Command Queuing and hot swapping SATA devices. In addition, the SiI 3124 chip supports spread spectrum clocking to reduce EMI.
Multilane Enclosure
As the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter is an external SATA solution, users will need a multilane enclosure for their SATA hard drives. During this review, an Addonics Storage Tower model ST4SAML configured with a multilane connector was used with four Snap-In SATA mobile racks. An Infiniband Multilane 4X cable connected the Storage Tower to the ADS3GX4R5-MLM multilane host adapter installed inside a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0. The Storage Tower can be used without mobile racks or it can be set up with a variety of different Disk Array modules.
The Snap in SATA mobile rack shown below allows the hard drive to be inserted without the use of a tray. As no drive trays are needed, this system is fast and simple when swapping hard drives. The mobile rack can be locked or left unlocked. Pulling out on the tab
where the Serial ATA decal is located on the front handle opens the mobile rack. If a hard drive is installed inside, opening the front door ejects the SATA hard drive.The user simply pulls the 3.5" SATA hard drive out of the enclosure and inserts a new hard drive. Placing a new hard drive inside the mobile rack and closing the front door secures the SATA hard drive to a backplane connector which provides both power and SATA data connections. A "click" sound can be heard once the front door of the mobile rack is closed. An animation of the Snap in mobile rack is provided above courtesy of Addonics.
If you look inside the Snap in mobile rack, the backplane mounting system and the cooling fan can be seen. The fan is on the left, an eject mechanism is located in the middle and the SATA data and power backplane is on the right side.
The Snap in SATA mobile rack also provides a blue power light and an activity light. These lights are located on the left side of the mobile rack. The light under the lock blinks blue when the hard drive inside the Snap in SATA mobile rack is active.
When installing the Snap in SATA mobile rack into the Addonics Storage Tower, the racks slide into the front of the enclosure. Once secured with screws on the sides of the enclosure, a molex power plug and a SATA data cable are connected to the rear of the Snap in SATA mobile rack. The other end of the data cable is connected to the internal multilane bridge board.
Once we added a 80mm fan inside the Storage Tower and inserted the hard drives, the enclosure was ready for testing with the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM multilane host adapter
StabilityThe Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter was tested hot swapping hard drives in and out of the multilane enclosure. The SiI-3124 Mac driver version 2.0.3 was installed. When individual hard drives were mounted they were able to be hot swapped in and out of the enclosure provided that the enclosure was turned off. If the enclosure was left on and other hard drives were already mounted, hot swapping would cause some of the hard drives to temporarily dismount and then remount. Turning the enclosure off while hot swapping individual hard drives avoided this problem.
Next, a RAID mounting stability test was completed with four Maxtor Maxline III 7V300F0 hard drives configured in a striped RAID set. The hard drives were ejected and placed back in the enclosure in a different order. Twenty out of twenty times the four drive striped RAID set was able to hot swap and remount the striped RAID set within 9 seconds of the last hard drive being inserted.
Sleep
Sleep mode was tested with the ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter using the multilane Storage Tower enclosure. A PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0Ghz using Mac OS X 10.4.8 was able to sleep with the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter installed provided that the SiI-3124 version 2.0.3 Mac driver was also installed. If the hard drives were dismounted before placing the PoweMac G5 in sleep mode, they were able to be mounted using Disk Utility once the Mac was awake.
The Silicon Image SiI-3124, 2.0.3 Mac driver even allows the enclosure to be turned off during sleep. If the enclosure is turned back on when the PowerMac is awake the ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter is able to continue to utilize the multilane enclosure. If the enclosure is left off, a dialog box says the drive is busy if a user tries to access it. Turning the enclosure back on re-establishes the hard drive connection within a few seconds.
One tip that applies to most host adapters is to be sure to uncheck the "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible" box found in System Preferences:Energy Saver of Mac OS X. Leaving that preference checked can cause sleep related errors. This is the most common user error I have found with SATA host adapters.
Multilane PerformanceIn this test, a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual running Mac OS X 10.4.8 was used with the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter installed in slot 4. An Addonics Storage Tower enclosure was attached to the host adapter with four Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives model 7V300F0 configured in a striped RAID set using Disk Utility. DiskTester 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test. DiskTester was used to measure the combined performance of the striped RAID set and the Mac OS X operating system. It is a Terminal application which requires using a command line executable. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester 2.0 to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on.
Multilane Single and Striped RAID Set Performance - DiskTester 10GB
| Maxtor 300GB Test |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver One Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver Four Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver Eight Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 68.7 | 70 | 277 | 276 | 540 | 540 |
| 10% | 67.5 | 68.4 | 273 | 271 | 538 | 528 |
| 20% | 66.3 | 67.2 | 268 | 264 | 518 | 507 |
| 30% | 63.9 | 64.9 | 260 | 257 | 509 | 509 |
| 40% | 60.9 | 61.9 | 254 | 250 | 493 | 484 |
| 50% | 58.6 | 59.7 | 238 | 235 | 465 | 456 |
| 60% | 56 | 56.9 | 229 | 227 | 450 | 444 |
| 70% | 52 | 52.7 | 210 | 208 | 413 | 409 |
| 80% | 48.8 | 49.3 | 201 | 200 | 393 | 392 |
| 90% | 44.9 | 45.5 | 181 | 179 | 359 | 353 |
| 100% | 41 | 41.5 | 156 | 155 | 304 | 301 |
| Average | 57.1 | 58 | 231 | 229 | 453 | 448 |
| Size | 279.4GB | 1.09TB | 2.18TB |
The table above provides performance figures for the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter when used with Maxtor Maxline III model 7V300F0 hard drives. Data is provided for a single hard drive, a four drive striped RAID set and for eight hard drives in a striped RAID set using two enclosures and two Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapters.
In the table below, the same DiskTester 2.0 test was completed using Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 SATA hard drives. In this setup, the Seagate 320GB hard drives provided slightly faster performance results than the Maxline III 7V300F0. When using eight hard drives in a striped RAID set the Seagate 320GB provided 5% faster average Write performance and 7% better average Read performance.
Multilane Single and Striped RAID Set Performance - DiskTester 10GB
| Seagate 320GB Test |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver One Seagate 320GB 7200.10 |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver Four Seagate 320GB 7200.10 |
ADS3GX4R5-MLM 2.03 Driver Eight Seagate 320GB 7200.10 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 72.8 | 73.2 | 283 | 293 | 579 | 583 |
| 10% | 71.9 | 72 | 271 | 293 | 551 | 584 |
| 20% | 71.2 | 71.4 | 276 | 285 | 571 | 568 |
| 30% | 68.6 | 68.7 | 260 | 277 | 555 | 551 |
| 40% | 66.4 | 66.6 | 258 | 266 | 524 | 531 |
| 50% | 62.5 | 62.7 | 238 | 252 | 506 | 508 |
| 60% | 59.4 | 59.5 | 228 | 239 | 479 | 475 |
| 70% | 55.4 | 55.6 | 214 | 222 | 433 | 444 |
| 80% | 50.3 | 50.4 | 198 | 205 | 412 | 409 |
| 90% | 44.6 | 44.7 | 177 | 180 | 363 | 361 |
| 100% | 38.5 | 38.7 | 143 | 148 | 295 | 295 |
| Average | 60.1 | 60.3 | 231 | 242 | 479 | 483 |
| Size | 297.69GB | 1.16TB | 2.33TB |
During these tests the Read results were able to be duplicated closely between test runs. However, while the Read test average was usually repeatable, individual Write scores had more of a variance between tests.
As the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter requires the use of a multilane bridge board, I wanted to find out if using a direct connect setup with the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM SATA PM host adapter would provide different performance results. Based on the comparison ADS3GX4R5-EM data provided in the table below, a Multilane setup will provide performance that is similar to a SATA PM host adapter used in a direct connect configuration. The eight drive results were very close. The ADS3GX4R5-EM was able to provide 4% higher average Write performance in the four drive striped RAID set configuration and 2% higher average performance when a single Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drive was tested using a direct connect configuration.
ADS3GX4R5-EM Direct Connect Single & Striped RAID Set Performance
| Seagate 320GB Test |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 74.7 | 75.2 | 284 | 294 | 586 | 574 |
| 10% | 73.8 | 74 | 293 | 294 | 587 | 583 |
| 20% | 72.8 | 73 | 288 | 288 | 572 | 568 |
| 30% | 70.2 | 70.4 | 278 | 278 | 541 | 551 |
| 40% | 67.9 | 68 | 267 | 267 | 532 | 532 |
| 50% | 64.4 | 64.5 | 255 | 255 | 513 | 509 |
| 60% | 60.5 | 60.8 | 241 | 241 | 472 | 475 |
| 70% | 56.6 | 56.8 | 225 | 225 | 427 | 444 |
| 80% | 51.3 | 51.5 | 206 | 206 | 407 | 409 |
| 90% | 45.6 | 45.7 | 178 | 181 | 362 | 362 |
| 100% | 39.5 | 39.7 | 147 | 149 | 293 | 295 |
| Average | 61.6 | 61.8 | 242 | 243 | 481 | 482 |
| Size | 297.69GB | 1.16TB | 2.33TB |
Multilane vs SATA PM
If a user is selecting a multilane host adapter because they already have a multilane enclosure or they are buying an enclosure that has a multilane port the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM is a great choice. However, if the user does not own a multilane enclosure yet, they may want to consider a SATA port multiplier compatible host adapter instead. Most of the enclosures built by companies that support Macintosh users are direct connect or SATA PM enclosures. The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM supports both of these enclosure types while a multilane host adapter only supports multilane enclosures. Users with multilane SATA host adapters installed will find that their enclosure options are considerably less than when a SATA PM host adapter is installed. This may cause some users to prefer the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM SATA PM host adapter.
Multilane allows a user to connect four hard drives with a single cable. That is an appealing feature versus four SATA cables that are required in a direct connect setup with a SATA PM card. In addition, the Addonics Infiniband Multilane cable is 59" long versus 39" to 41" long for a standard external eSATA data cable. The extra cable length allows the enclosure to be located farther away from the computer. If these features are appealing, then a multilane host adapter and enclosure may be worth considering.
The advantage that the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM SATA PM host adapter provides is the ability to utilize 5-bay SATA PM enclosures. With this setup, up to four 5-bay SATA PM enclosures can be connected to a single ADS3GX4R5-EM host adapter. The ability to support up to twenty hard drives with a single card is an awesome feature. Port Multiplier capability is not supported by multilane bridge boards. With the ability to support up to 5x more hard drives the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-EM SATA PM host adapter will be preferred over Multilane configurations by some users.
Pros
Works with PowerMac G4 and PowerMac G5 PCI-X models.
4x multilane connector supports a four bay multilane enclosure.
Works with SATA I and SATA II hard drives.
Supports hot swap and sleep.
Works with individually formatted hard drives.
Works with RAID1 or RAID0 created RAID sets.
SiI-3124 Mac driver version 2.0.3 included.
Provides nice striped RAID set performance.
Infiniband Multilane 4X data cable (AAIB4C150) is 59" long. (sold separately)
Cons
Requires installing additional drivers for Mac OS X.
Does not support booting.
Does not pass SMART data to Mac OS X.
No uninstall program for SiI-3124 Mac driver.
Does not hot swap individual hard drives properly with enclosure powered.
Does not support SATA PM enclosures.
Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
The Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter provides PowerMac users with the ability to easily support multilane enclosures. This PCI-X multilane SATA host adapter performed well during the AMUG review process. Macintosh users that are looking for a PCI-X SATA host adapter that supports the Multilane cable standard will find that the Addonics ADS3GX4R5-MLM host adapter provides both good performance and a very reasonable price.
Contact Information:
Addonics Technologies
2466 Kruse Drive,
San Jose, CA 95131 USA
408-433-3899
addonics@addonics.com
http://www.addonics.com
Copyright 2007
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