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October 13, 2006
The Bootable PCI Express SATA Solution
A review of the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E Two Port External Serial ATA PCIe Host Adapter
By Arthur Whalem
FirmTek is shipping the SeriTek/2SE2-E ($99.95) two port Serial ATA PCI Express host adapter. It is the first SATA host adapter that provides boot capability for Dual-Core and Quad Macintosh G5 systems. The SeriTek/2SE2-E is fully compatible with the PCI Express bus architecture found in Apple's Dual-Core G5 Macintosh and newer PC computers. This 1x PCIe SATA host adapter provides two external SATA II ports which support both SATA I and SATA II hard drives. The SeriTek/2SE2-E can mount individual hard drives and has RAID capability using Disk Utility. The SeriTek/2SE2-E includes a PCIe host adapter and a manual on CD when purchased by itself or it is also available in the SeriTek/2SEN2-E bundle ($289.95)
which includes one SeriTek/2EN2 external dual-bay hot-swap SATA enclosure, and one SeriTek/2SE2-E PCI Express (PCIe) adapter. With this SATA host adapter installed in a PCIe PowerMac G5 the user has two bootable external eSATA ports.System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Compatible with PowerMac G5 Dual Core models with PCIe.
Provides a one-lane PCI Express to 2-port Serial ATA II host controller.
Requires up to two external SATA 3.5" hard drives.
Which PCIe Slot?PCI Express also known as PCIe, communicates using 250MB per second data lanes. PCI Express slot and card bandwidth is determined by the number of data lanes they can accommodate. One lane, four lanes, eight lanes, or 16 lanes are some of the typical PCIe options available. The PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models have four PCI Express slots. PCI Express slot 1 which is the bottom slot has 16 lanes. It is designated as "1" 16x on the PowerMac G5 PCIe frame. This 16x PCIe slot is the fastest slot in the PowerMac G5. It is factory configured for use with the Apple pre-installed video card. Slots 2 and 4 are empty when the PowerMac G5 shipped. They both provide 4x speed. At 250 MBps per lane, a four-lane (4x) slot can transfer data at up to 1GB per second which should be similar in speed to a 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X slot which has a theoretical maximum speed of 1067 MB per second. The Apple PowerMac G5 PCIe bus slot 3 is rated at a speed of 8x. At 250 MBps per lane, an eight-lane (8x) slot can transfer data at up to 2GB per second. That is almost twice as fast as a 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X slot.
According to page 12 of the Apple PowerMac G5 Technology Overview, "Each slot uses a standard connector that can accommodate a card of any size". This means that a one-lane card like the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E will work well in any available PCIe slot. As the slot has more lanes than the card, it “downshifts” to the one-lane data rate.
You can see how two SeriTek/2SE2-E SATA host adapters appear in System Profiler while installed in a PowerMac G5 Quad in the image below.
To demonstrate that all of the PCIe slots perform similarly, the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E was tested with a SeriTek/2EN2 external dual-bay hot-swap SATA enclosure using the card installed in slot 2, 3 and 4 of a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Quad. DiskTester 2.0 was used to measure the performance of a two drive striped RAID set consisting of two Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives. The PowerMac G5 Quad used for these tests has 2.5GB of memory and Mac OS X 10.4.8 installed. The results are shown in the table below.
PCIe Slot Comparison with 7200.10 Dual Striped RAID Set
 Slot 2 SeriTek/2SE2-E Two Seagate ST3320620AS |
Slot 3 SeriTek/2SE2-E Two Seagate ST3320620AS |
Slot 4 SeriTek/2SE2-E Two Seagate ST3320620AS |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 146 | 146 | 146 | 146 | 146 | 146 |
| 10% | 145 | 145 | 145 | 145 | 145 | 145 |
| 20% | 142 | 143 | 142 | 143 | 143 | 143 |
| 30% | 138 | 138 | 139 | 139 | 138 | 138 |
| 40% | 133 | 133 | 133 | 133 | 133 | 133 |
| 50% | 125 | 125 | 125 | 125 | 126 | 126 |
| 60% | 120 | 119 | 120 | 119 | 119 | 119 |
| 70% | 111 | 111 | 111 | 111 | 111 | 111 |
| 80% | 101 | 102 | 102 | 102 | 102 | 102 |
| 90% | 89.7 | 89.7 | 89.4 | 89.6 | 89.5 | 89.6 |
| Average | 125.07 | 125.17 | 125.24 | 125.26 | 125.25 | 125.26 |
| Type | Direct | Direct | Direct | |||
| RAID Size | 595.9GB | 595.9GB | 595.9GB |
Examining the results in the table above tells me two things. 1) Using a 10GB test size with DiskTester 2.0 produces very reliable results. 2) The difference in performance between the three PCIe slots using the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E SATA host adapter is nonexistent. Users can install the SeriTek/2SE2-E in any of the PowerMac G5 PCIe slots and have almost identical performance.
Features
AMUG has tested the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter with a variety of enclosures and hard drives. You can find host adapters that look very similar to the SeriTek/2SE2-E on the market. These are two port SiI 3132 SATA host adapters. However, the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter provides many more features when installed in the PowerMac G5 Dual Core or Quad. FirmTek has created their own firmware which provides great performance, boot capability, passes SMART data and does not require installing a Mac driver. In fact, this is the first and only bootable PCIe host adapter for the PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models.
Boot CapabilityWith the introduction of the SeriTek/2SE2-E, PowerMac G5 Dual-Core models can now enjoy boot capability with a SATA host adapter. No other company has been able to provide this feature since the October 19, 2005 introduction of the PowerMac G5 models with PCIe. It took FirmTek engineering to make this happen. FirmTek SATA host adapters provide the ability to boot from any port on the SATA host adapter. You can backup your internal master boot drive with the FirmTek host adapter and test it by booting off of the host adapter. No re-installing of internal hard drives is required.
In addition, FirmTek provides a "Turbo Boot" feature that allows the hard drive connected to the host adapter to boot with the same speed as an Apple internal SATA mounted drive. The flexibility of a bootable host adapter is very nice. Once you have experienced a fast bootable host adapter from FirmTek, it is hard to go back to a card without boot capability. Which by the way, is every other currently shipping Macintosh PCIe SATA host adapter on the market. If you want the option to be able to boot your PCIe PowerMac G5 from an external SATA hard drive you need a FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E.
Dialog Box Connection Feedback
The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E provides feedback. It notifies users with a dialog box when their hard drive configuration changes on the SATA host adapter. This feature informs the user when new drives are mounting and when they dismount. With this information available on the computer screen, users are always kept informed of the status of their host adapter and the hard drives that are connected to it.
Sleep
The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E was tested for sleep capability. The SeriTek/2SE2-E allowed the Macintosh to utilize sleep mode. Approximately 7 seconds after the sleep command is selected the PowerMac screen will go blank and the fans stop running. However, the hard drives mounted in the SeriTek/2EN2 dual bay enclosure did not spin down while the PowerMac was in sleep mode. Energy usage was the same as when the Macintosh was awake. Once the PowerMac G5 was awake both hard drives mounted on the SeriTek/2SE2-E were available for use within 9 seconds after the monitor turned on.
I was also able to put the PowerMac G5 to sleep with the hard drives mounted, then turn off the enclosure, later I turned on the enclosure and 20 seconds later woke the PowerMac from sleep. The hard drives were still mounted and ready to be used within 12 seconds after the monitor was on. I was also able to dismount the hard drives on the SeriTek/2EN2 and remount them using Disk Utility.
If you leave the hard drives on the SeriTek/2SE2-E mounted during sleep and then turn them off and do not turn them back on before waking the PowerMac G5 from sleep the cursor locks up. The card is not properly programmed to recognize that the hard drives are no longer available. The mouse will stay locked and the fans will begin to spin at high speed. Turning the hard drives back on usually will not allow the PowerMac G5 to recover. To avoid this problem dismount the hard drives before sleep or make sure that the enclosure is turned on when waking the Macintosh.
Stability
During this review a SeriTek/2EN2 two bay enclosure was used to test how the SeriTek/2SE2-E using firmware 5.1.7 performed when hot swapping hard drives in and out of the enclosure. When individual hard drives were mounted in the enclosure they were able to be hot swapped in and out without turning off the computer or the enclosure. The hard drives usually mounted within 14 seconds of being inserted. Several Hitachi, Maxtor and Seagate hard drives were inserted in the enclosure twenty times. In each case the hard drives mounted.
RAIDs
The SeriTek/2SE2-E host adapter was also able to hot swap dual drive striped RAID sets. They usually mounted within 19 seconds of inserting both hard drives. The firmware was able to hot swap every hard drive it was tested with.
image courtesy of Silicon Image.
Controller & Hard Drives
The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter utilizes the Silicon Image SiI 3132 PCI Express (1x) to 2 port SATA300 controller chip. It provides a dedicated DMA channel for each SATA port, supports hot-plug, works with SATA I and SATA II hard drives and is compliant with Serial ATA II features, including 3.0 Gbps SATA II transfer speeds, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC), port multipliers with FIS-based switching, and has programmable output signal swing strengths for longer external cables or extended backplanes.
The SeriTek/2SE2-E passes hard drive SMART data to Mac OS X which allows Hardware Monitor to display the drive temperature readings. This is a nice feature that the Silicon Image Mac drivers do not support yet. The SeriTek/2SE2-E also supports Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). As a result, users will not have to be concerned with whether SSC is turned on or off on the SATA hard drive. The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E was able to mount any hard drive connection it was tested with during this evaluation.
Dual Bay EnclosureAs the SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter is an external two port eSATA solution you will need an enclosure for the external SATA hard drives. The SeriTek/2EN2 two bay hot swap enclosure is an ideal match with the SeriTek/2SE2-E. This enclosure provides hard drive detection and activity lights on the left side of each hard drive tray. The activity light provided by the SeriTek/2EN2 tray is dependant on the hard drive installed also supporting this feature. All of the new large capacity hard drives tested, worked with the 2EN2 activity light, including the Maxtor 300GB, Seagate 320GB and the SATA II Hitachi 160GB. However, some older hard drives may not display the activity light. The only hard drive that I have available that would not work with the activity light feature was an older Seagate 160GB 7200.7 model ST3160023AS.
The FirmTek SeriTek/2EN2 provides a small, quiet, powerful, well built enclosure that works well with the SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter. The hot swap drive trays allow users to easily replace hard drives with very little effort. The fact that you can utilize the same hard drive trays in all of the FirmTek enclosures makes moving hard drives from one computer setup to another very easy. In addition, the SeriTek/2EN2 has a new three position fan selector switch which allows users to dial in the desired acoustical hard drive setup for their particular needs. If you require silence, the "Low" setting will accommodate you. If later your needs change and you want the fans to run a little faster, you can simply switch the fan setting to "Medium" or "High". The fact that the user has control over the fan setting adds value to this wonderful two bay enclosure.
You can purchase the SeriTek/2SEN2-E bundle ($289.95) which includes a SeriTek/2EN2 external dual-bay SATA enclosure and the SeriTek/2SE2-E PCI Express (PCIe) adapter. These two items work great together as an external PCIe SATA solution.
PerformanceA SeriTek/2SE2-E host adapter using firmware version 5.1.7 was installed in slot 2 of a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Quad, running Mac OS X 10.4.8. Two dual drive SeriTek/2EN2 enclosures with four Seagate 7200.10 320GB hard drives were tested with an individual drive, a dual striped RAID set and a four drive striped RAID set while attached to the SeriTek/2SE2-E SATA host adapter(s). DiskTester 2.0 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the SeriTek/2SE2-E performs with this combination. DiskTester is a Terminal application that measures the combined performance of a volume and the Mac OS X operating system. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on.
FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E Hard Drive Performance
 SeriTek/2SE2-E Single Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS |
SeriTek/2SE2-E Dual Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS |
 Two SeriTek/2SE2-E Four Seagate 320GB ST3320620AS |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 74.3 | 74.4 | 146 | 146 | 260 | 283 |
| 10% | 73.1 | 73.2 | 145 | 145 | 271 | 291 |
| 20% | 72.5 | 72.6 | 143 | 143 | 276 | 284 |
| 30% | 69.7 | 69.8 | 138 | 138 | 262 | 277 |
| 40% | 67.2 | 67.4 | 133 | 133 | 258 | 266 |
| 50% | 63.9 | 64 | 126 | 126 | 244 | 252 |
| 60% | 60.6 | 60.7 | 119 | 119 | 227 | 239 |
| 70% | 56.2 | 56.3 | 111 | 111 | 212 | 222 |
| 80% | 51.2 | 51.3 | 101 | 102 | 191 | 206 |
| 90% | 45.1 | 45.2 | 89.6 | 89.8 | 173 | 180 |
| Average | 63.38 | 63.49 | 125.16 | 125.28 | 237.4 | 250 |
| MSRP | $99.95 | $99.95 | $199.90 | |||
| Size | 298GB | 595.9GB | 1.16TB |
The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E PCIe SATA host adapter performs well when tested with a direct connect single hard drive or striped RAID sets. The Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives used in this test were able to achieve write speeds of 270MB/sec and read speeds of 290MB/sec. with two host adapters and four hard drives.
Boot Drive Tests
In this test, a Seagate 320GB 7200.10 and a Maxtor Maxline 300GB model 7V300F0 were compared using the internal PowerMac G5 SATA bus versus the bootable FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E host adapter. Each hard drive tested had a bootable Mac OS X 10.4.8 system and contained the same 8GB of data. The hard drives were mounted as boot drives on a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Quad with 2.5GB of memory. Several boot configurations were tested. Each drive was booted and tested on the PowerMac G5 while on the "A" SATA internal drive bus, the "B" SATA internal drive bus, and the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E external SATA adapter (Slot 2). Energy settings were set on highest and the drives were not allowed to sleep. A 4.25GB folder (containing two video files) was copied to and from a Seagate 595GB two drive striped RAID set mounted on another SeriTek/2SE2-E host adapter. The copy time was recorded along with the time to repair permissions, boot and duplicate the 4.25GB folder on each boot drive. Xbench and DiskTester scores of the hard drive performance and the overall computer performance were also recorded.
| Seagate 320GB 7200.10 | Internal A | Internal B | 2SE2-E (Slot 2) |
| Boot Time | 52 seconds | 53 seconds | 52 seconds |
| Copy 4.25GB to RAID | 59 seconds | 59 seconds | 59 seconds |
| Copy 4.25GB from RAID | 1:32 minutes | 1:32 minutes | 59 seconds |
| Repair Permissions | 14 seconds | 14 seconds | 14 seconds |
| Duplicate 4.25GB | 2:36 minutes | 2:36 minutes | 2:00 minutes |
| Xbench 1.3 Disk/Overall | 57/128 | 57/128 | 57/132 |
| DiskTester 10GB Read/Write | 74.3/45.7 | 74.3/45.7 | 74.3/71.1 |
| - | |||
| Maxline 300GB 7V300F0 | Internal A | Internal B | 2SE2-E (Slot 2) |
| Boot Time | 51 seconds | 52 seconds | 51 seconds |
| Copy 4.25GB to RAID | 1:03 minutes | 1:03 minutes | 1:01 minutes |
| Copy 4.25GB from RAID | 1:02 minutes | 1:02 minutes | 1:01 minutes |
| Repair Permissions | 9 seconds | 9 seconds | 9 seconds |
| Duplicate 4.25GB | 2:09 minutes | 2:09 minutes | 2:08 minutes |
| Xbench 1.1.3 Disk/Overall | 113/151 | 111/151 | 111/151 |
| DiskTester 10GB Read/Write | 69.5/69.1 | 69.6/69.2 | 70/70.2 |
The tests above were designed to show how the Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 and the Maxline 7V300F0 300GB perform with the FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E. The results indicate that the SeriTek/2SE2-E "Turbo Boot" feature provides boot capability that is very similar to the Apple bus.
The Seagate performance data in the table above demonstrates that when the 7200.10 is installed on a PowerMac G5 internal bus, its write speed drops dramatically. Using the SeriTek/2SE2-E to connect the Seagate 7200.10 to the PowerMac G5 improves write performance. Based on this information, performance minded users will probably want to use the Maxline 7V300F0 300GB hard drives internally in a PowerMac G5 instead of a 7200.10.
The Seagate 320GB model 7200.10 hard drive provides good performance when used with the SeriTek/2SE2-E. The Seagate 7200.10 copy capability is a little faster than the Maxline 7V300F0 when used with the SeriTek/2SE2-E.
DiscussionThe FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E two port PCIe external SATA host adapter is the first card available that provides the ability to boot a Macintosh from a PCIe host adapter. The FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E provides high performance, boot capability, passes SMART data, works in every slot, and does not require a driver to be installed. No other two port PCIe SATA host adapter for the PowerMac G5 Dual-Core and Quad models provides all of these features.
Users that want two bootable external SATA ports will find the SeriTek/2SE2-E is a nice value at $99.95. The SeriTek/2SE2-E Macintosh driver for the Mac Pro is version 5.2.0. The Apple Mac Pro cannot boot with the SeriTek/2SE2-E but it does support sleep, hot swap and passes SMART data to Mac OS X.
Pros
Mounts up to two external SATA drives.
Supports Mac OS X version 10.4 or later.
Performs better than FireWire 800 in most situations.
Can be used with boot drives.
Provides fast transfer rates.
Multitasks disk transfers which increases CPU efficiency.
Support Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC).
Supports the Power Mac G5 PCIe bus.
User-upgradeable firmware.
48-bit LBA support for drive sizes larger than 137GB.
Easily mounts single drives or a RAID configuration.
No additional Mac drivers needed.
Works on all PowerMacs with a PCIe slot.
Works with WiebeTech SilverSATA II.
Supports deep sleep.
Supports port multiplier connections using firmware 5.2.0.
Cons
Cannot boot a Mac Pro.
FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E gets 5 AMUGs out of 5!
The SeriTek/2SE2-E provides a PCIe SATA host adapter with PowerMac G5 boot capability for the first time. In addition, the FirmTek "Turbo Boot" feature allows an external hard drive to boot just as fast as the internal ports. FirmTek has a history of making great products and the SeriTek/2SE2-E firmware is no exception. The fact that FirmTek has released a two port bootable PCIe host adapter that passes SMART data and does not depend on the Silicon Image Mac driver is awesome. The
SeriTek/2SE2-E is a great tool for expanding SATA capabilities at a reasonable price. You can see more details about this product at the FirmTek web site.Contact Information:
FirmTek, LLC
29300 Kohoutek Way #120
Union City CA 94587
Tel: 510.675.9800
http://www.firmtek.com
FirmTek Special Offer - (Requires AMUG Membership)
AMUG Members can save $15 on the SeriTek/2SE2-E ($99.95 retail) or $30 on the SeriTek/2SEN2-E bundle which includes one SeriTek/2EN2 external dual-bay hot-swap SATA enclosure and one SeriTek/2SE2-E PCI Express (PCIe) adapter for Mac Dual-Core G5 and PC computers ($289.95 retail). You can place orders at http://www.store.yahoo.com/firmtek/ and enter the code found in the AMUG members only area, into the comments section of the FirmTek order page. This promotional code will expire January 15, 2007. FirmTek will adjust the price of the SeriTek/2SE2-E from $99.95 to $84.95 or if you purchase the SeriTek/2SEN2-E bundle the price will drop from $289.95 to $259.95 when the order is processed. AMUG membership is required for these discounts to apply.
Copyright 2006
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