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May 18, 2007
Mac Pro PCIe 8x SATA PM Host Adapter
A Review of the NORCO-4629 Four Port PCI Express SATA II Host Adapter
By Arthur Whalem
NORCO Technologies is shipping the NORCO-4629 ($189 MSRP) PCIe 8x SATA host adapter. This SATA PM compatible PCI Express host adapter supports Mac OS X, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Linux computers with an available PCIe slot. The NORCO-4629 utilizes a serial to parallel PCI bridge interface that allows the Silicon Image SiI-3124 PCI/PCI-X chip to function with a PCIe bus. Four external eSATA data ports are mounted on the rear of the card for use with SATA external hard drive enclosures. When using four, 5-bay port multiplier enclosures the NORCO-4629 can support up to twenty SATA hard drives. The purpose of this review is to determine how the NORCO-4629 will perform with an Apple Mac Pro.
System Requirements
Mac OS X Version 10.4 and later or a Windows/Linux operating system.
Requires a computer with an available PCIe slot.
Supports up to four external SATA hard drives using direct connect enclosure.
Supports up to twenty external SATA hard drives using multiple, 5-bay SATA PM enclosures.
InstallationPCI Express also known as PCIe, communicates using 250MB per second data lanes. PCI Express bandwidth is determined by the number of data lanes that the device can accommodate. One lane, four lanes, eight lanes, or 16 lanes are some of the typical PCIe options available. The Apple Mac Pro has four PCI Express slots. The NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter is an eight lane card that is also compatible with four lane slots. In an Apple Mac Pro the NORCO-4629 is provided with maximum bandwidth when installed in slot 4, which is an eight lane slot by default. Mac Pro users will need to install the Silicon Image SiI3124 32-bit universal Mac OS X 10.4.x BASE driver in order for the Mac Pro to recognize the NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter.
The Apple Mac Pro PCIe bus design utilizes the "Expansion Slot Utility" to configure the speed of the PCIe slots. The Expansion Slot Utility can be found within Mac OS X at Macintosh HD: System:Library: CoreServices:Expansion Slot Utility. It will usually automatically launch when it detects that a card has been installed in a slot that is slower than the cards maximum speed.
In the example above, the NORCO-4629 is installed in the top slot of an Apple Mac Pro which is slot 4. There are four configurations that the Expansion Slot Utility allows the user to select. However, most users will want to maintain the video card in a 16 lane slot. With that being the case, only the first two configurations maintain a 16 lane video card setup. When using more than one four lane SATA host adapter, the second Expansion Slot Utility configuration allows PCIe slots 3 and 4 to both provide four lane performance.
In the example above, the Apple Mac Pro has the NORCO-4629 installed in slot 4 and the Sonnet Tempo E4P installed in slot 3. The second Expansion Slot Utility setting is selected which provides each card with four PCIe lanes.
The Apple Expansion Slot Utility displays the NORCO-4629 as an eight lane device. In order to determine if the NORCO-4629 would perform different in a four lane bus versus an eight lane PCIe bus, a ten drive striped RAID set was utilized to test both configurations.
PCI Express 8 Lane vs 4 Lane
Two 5-bay SATA PM enclosures with five Maxline III 300GB model 7V300F0 hard drives installed in each enclosure were attached to two ports on the NORCO-4629 mounted in a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz using the Silicon Image 2.0.3 Mac OS X driver. DiskTester 2.0 was used to measure the performance. Using the command: ./disktester run-area-test --chunk-size 128M --test-size 10G --delta-percent 10 DriveName, displays how the 10 drive striped RAID set performed when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on.
NORCO-4629 10 Drive Maxline III 7V300F0 Striped RAID set
| Area Full |
4x Slot
|
8x Slot
|
||
|
Write
|
Read
|
Write
|
Read
|
|
| empty |
405
|
463
|
416
|
468
|
| 10% |
408
|
463
|
416
|
470
|
| 20% |
408
|
463
|
416
|
471
|
| 30% |
407
|
464
|
417
|
471
|
| 40% |
407
|
463
|
417
|
469
|
| 50% |
408
|
463
|
419
|
470
|
| 60% |
408
|
463
|
419
|
470
|
| 70% |
409
|
462
|
419
|
470
|
| 80% |
407
|
463
|
418
|
467
|
| 90% |
407
|
442
|
417
|
445
|
| 100% | 373 | 374 | 373 | 378 |
| Average |
404
|
453
|
413
|
459
|
| RAID Size |
2.73TB
|
2.73TB
|
Based on these results, using the default Mac Pro PCIe eight lane configuration with the NORCO-4629 installed in slot 4 can enhance performance. When utilizing the NORCO-4629 with a four lane PCIe slot, read and write performance is only slightly slower. Different hard drives may produce different results. The NORCO-4629 works well with either a 4 lane or an 8 lane PCIe slot.
When users examine the NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter with Mac OS X System Profiler they will find that it is displayed as a dual PCI to PCI Bridge. The image above shows an example of this configuration in slot 4. The card mounted in slot 3 is a Sonnet Tempo E4P host adapter.
Features
The NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter provides PCIe users with the ability to utilize the Silicon Image SATALink SiI3124 chip via a serial to parallel PCI bridge interface. The development of the NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter is based on the Silicon Image PB3124X8-4ESATA300 reference design. This eight lane physical PCI-express hardware allows the NORCO-4629 to provide exceptional performance when twenty hard drives are attached to the host adapter. Using the four external eSATA ports of the NORCO-4629 with four 5-bay SATA PM enclosures allows this high speed 8x PCIe SATA host adapter to provide impressive data handling characteristics.Silicon Image claims that, with 20 hard drives attached to the four port PB3124X8-4ESATA300 reference design they can obtain a sequential read speed of 889MB/s, enabling up to four uncompressed HD streams to be played simultaneously. The model of hard drives used with the test and the PC platform is not disclosed in the article.
The NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. The SiI-3124 provides Serial ATA II technology capable of running SATA 2nd generation speeds of 3Gbps. It supports FIS-based switching for enhanced port multiplier performance. It also supports native command queuing, spread spectrum clocking to reduce EMI and provides four independent DMA channels with 2KB FIFO per channel. The NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter supports deep sleep, hot swap and works with Disk Utility to format hard drives and create RAID sets.
No Boot or SMART Capability
The Silicon Image 2.0.3 Mac Pro driver does not provide boot capability. FirmTek is the only company that is currently shipping a PCI Express SATA host adapter for the Macintosh that supports booting. It is the two port SeriTek/2SE2-E model. However, the NORCO-4629 provides four high speed (x8) ports while the SeriTek/2SE2-E only has two (x1) ports.
Another feature that the NORCO-4629 Silicon Image driver lacks is SMART data support with Disk Utility. Users can verify this by connecting a hard drive to the NORCO-4629 host adapter and launch Disk Utility. Select a NORCO-4629 mounted hard drive on the left side of the Disk Utility window and it will display that SMART data is not supported.
NORCO-4629 Mac OS X users will not be able to monitor hard drive SMART status or view hard drive temperatures using Hardware Monitor. It would be nice if Silicon Image added Disk Utility SMART support in the future. The FirmTek PCIe SATA host adapters that utilize Silicon Image chips provide Mac OS X SMART support. In addition, the Sonnet PCIe Tempo E4P SATA host adapter also provides SMART support.
Energy Usage
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter hardware requires approximately 8.5 watts while idle when installed in a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz model. This was determined by measuring the energy usage with and without the card installed while the computer was idle for at least 10 minutes. The difference between the two readings is 8.5 watts. SATA host adapters that utilize the Intel serial to parallel PCI bridge interface like the NORCO-4629, require a little more energy to power both the bridge and the controller chips.
Enclosures
As the NORCO-4629 host adapter is an external eSATA solution, users will need an enclosure for mounting the SATA hard drives. NORCO sells two enclosures that work well with the NORCO-4629. The NORCO DS-1220 is a 12-bay SATA enclosure that supports 10-bays using dual SATA port multipliers. The two remaining bays are setup in a direct connect configuration. A single NORCO-4629 host adapter can support hard drives mounted in all 12-bays of the NORCO DS-1220. Users can learn more about the NORCO DS-1220 SATA hard drive subsystem by reading the AMUG review provided on our web site.
NORCO also sells the DS-500 SATA PM enclosure. The NORCO DS-500 is a 5-bay SATA PM hot swap hard drive enclosure with a silver aluminum case. It utilizes the same tray design as the DS-1220. This feature allows users that own both products to swap hard drives between enclosures. The NORCO DS-500 utilizes a single SATA data cable to support up to five hard drives mounted in the enclosure. As this is the case, a single NORCO-4629 host adapter can support up to four NORCO DS-500 enclosures, each containing up to five SATA hard drives for a total of twenty SATA hard drives. Once twenty hard drives are mounted on the NORCO-4629, the 8x PCIe design measurably enhances performance.The NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter supports both port multipliers and individual SATA hard drive enclosures. As such, it will work with any external SATA enclosure that supports eSATA data connections.
The SATA port multiplier standard also known as "SATA PM" allows up to five hard drives to be connected using a single eSATA data cable. Port multiplier enclosures utilize fast FIS-based switching to interface with the hard drives. Even though a port multiplier has some bandwidth limitations, users will usually find that a five drive SATA PM enclosure can out perform a four drive direct connect striped RAID set once the volume is 50% full or more. While a SATA PM enclosure may not perform as fast when empty as a direct connect drive setup, it can provide advanced performance stability as the hard drives become full.
SATA PM RAID PerformanceThe NORCO-4629 SATA host adapter was installed in slot 4 configured with eight lanes in an Apple Mac Pro 2.66 GHz with 3GB of memory using the SiI-3124 driver version 2.03 and running Mac OS X 10.4.9. Several five bay port multiplier enclosures were used with the NORCO-4629 for these SATA PM tests. DiskTester 10GB read and write tests were performed using a run area test so that this article could display how the RAID performs with the NORCO-4629. 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 --transfer-size 131072 --test-size 10240 --delta-percent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. The table below displays how two different five drive striped RAID sets perform when using a single port on the NORCO-4629 with a port multiplier enclosure. The same exact tests were also performed with a Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P for comparison.
5 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
 NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
 Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 212 | 228 |
215
|
236
|
210 | 227 | 211 | 247 |
| 10% | 214 | 228 |
215
|
236
|
212 | 227 | 212 | 247 |
| 20% | 214 | 228 |
215
|
236
|
212 | 227 | 212 | 246 |
| 30% | 213 | 228 |
215
|
236
|
211 | 228 | 212 | 246 |
| 40% | 214 | 229 |
216
|
236
|
212 | 228 | 212 | 247 |
| 50% | 214 | 228 |
216
|
236
|
212 | 229 | 212 | 247 |
| 60% | 214 | 229 |
215
|
236
|
212 | 230 | 212 | 245 |
| 70% | 214 | 230 |
216
|
236
|
212 | 231 | 212 | 246 |
| 80% | 214 | 232 |
216
|
235
|
213 | 231 | 212 | 240 |
| 90% | 214 | 223 |
216
|
223
|
212 | 216 | 213 | 224 |
| 100% | 183 | 184 | 176 | 190 | 183 | 184 | 178 | 189 |
| Average | 211 | 224 |
212
|
230
|
209 | 223 | 209 | 239 |
| Size | 1.45TB | 1.36TB | 1.45TB | 1.36TB | ||||
| MSRP | $189 | $189 | $299.95 | $299.95 |
As the NORCO-4629 and the Sonnet Tempo E4P are both Apple Mac Pro compatible 4-port SATA PM host adapters, I wanted to compare their performance results. As you can see in the table above, these SATA host adapters perform similar when using a 5-bay SATA PM enclosure configured as a striped RAID set. Both SATA host adapters provide excellent performance capabilities.
The next performance table expands the results to include a ten drive SATA PM striped RAID set configuration.
10 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Seagate 320 7200.10 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Maxline 300 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 410 | 445 |
416
|
468
|
406 | 451 | 408 | 481 |
| 10% | 416 | 446 |
416
|
470
|
410 | 453 | 412 | 479 |
| 20% | 416 | 446 |
416
|
471
|
411 | 447 | 412 | 481 |
| 30% | 415 | 448 |
417
|
471
|
411 | 448 | 414 | 480 |
| 40% | 416 | 447 |
417
|
469
|
412 | 450 | 412 | 480 |
| 50% | 416 | 446 |
419
|
470
|
412 | 448 | 414 | 481 |
| 60% | 417 | 447 |
419
|
470
|
414 | 450 | 413 | 480 |
| 70% | 417 | 450 |
419
|
470
|
414 | 447 | 415 | 481 |
| 80% | 417 | 452 |
418
|
467
|
414 | 444 | 413 | 481 |
| 90% | 416 | 443 |
417
|
445
|
415 | 415 | 415 | 444 |
| 100% | 365 | 362 | 373 | 378 | 364 | 349 | 369 | 373 |
| Average | 411 | 439 |
413
|
459
|
407 | 437 | 409 | 467 |
| Size | 2.9TB | 2.73TB | 2.9TB | 2.73TB | ||||
| MSRP | $189 | $189 | $299.95 | $299.95 |
Once again, both cards provide about the same performance. However, the Tempo E4P read speeds are a little higher when used with Maxline III 300GB 7V300F0 hard drives.
The next SATA PM table demonstrates how a fifteen drive SATA PM striped RAID set comprised of ten Maxline III 7V300F0 drives and five Seagate 320GB 7200.10 hard drives performs.
15 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Three PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (5) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Three PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (5) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 564 | 622 | 534 | 633 |
| 10% | 571 | 625 | 543 | 631 |
| 20% | 572 | 626 | 542 | 632 |
| 30% | 571 | 624 | 542 | 632 |
| 40% | 575 | 625 | 543 | 635 |
| 50% | 574 | 626 | 543 | 636 |
| 60% | 576 | 629 | 544 | 633 |
| 70% | 574 | 635 | 545 | 631 |
| 80% | 573 | 644 | 545 | 628 |
| 90% | 571 | 642 | 543 | 620 |
| 100% | 575 | 566 | 544 | 572 |
| Average | 572 | 624 | 543 | 626 |
| Size | 4.09TB | 4.09TB | ||
| MSRP | $189 | $299.95 |
a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz model in PCIe slot 4 with a fifteen drive SATA PM setup.
In the 15 drive striped RAID set test above, the NORCO-4629 provided higher write performance while the Tempo E4P provided marginally higher read capability. The extra bandwidth of the eight lane NORCO-4629 starts to show up in the performance statistics when 15 or more hard drives are mounted.
Another interesting configuration is to setup four SATA PM enclosures with four hard drives per enclosure. This 16 drive setup can provide outstanding performance. The table below displays the results.
16 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (8) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (8) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
 Dual NORCO-4629 in slots 3/4 with 4 lanes. Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (8) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (8) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 654 | 701 | 577 | 674 | 750 | 713 |
| 10% | 664 | 706 | 594 | 672 | 768 | 710 |
| 20% | 671 | 700 | 596 | 675 | 771 | 714 |
| 30% | 664 | 707 | 595 | 673 | 764 | 711 |
| 40% | 669 | 705 | 595 | 676 | 772 | 714 |
| 50% | 663 | 712 | 595 | 674 | 770 | 717 |
| 60% | 672 | 708 | 592 | 682 | 768 | 720 |
| 70% | 668 | 722 | 594 | 680 | 771 | 726 |
| 80% | 671 | 718 | 596 | 688 | 776 | 744 |
| 90% | 669 | 714 | 596 | 670 | 721 | 699 |
| 100% | 607 | 602 | 595 | 609 | 597 | 597 |
| Average | 661 | 700 | 593 | 670 | 748 | 706 |
| Size | 4.36TB | 4.36TB | 4.36TB | |||
| MSRP | $189 | $299.95 | $378 |
The NORCO-4629 can provide over 660MB/sec average write performance and 700MB/sec. read performance when using 16 hard drives with an eight lane PCIe slot. Using dual NORCO-4629 cards in slots 3 and 4 with eight drives on each card can provide even higher write performance.
In the test below, twenty hard drives are configured in a striped RAID set. The NORCO-4629 read performance is increased by approximately 10% using this setup.
20 Drive SATA Port Multiplier Striped RAID - DiskTester 10GB Test
NORCO-4629 2.0.3 Driver Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
Sonnet E4P 2.1 Driver Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
Dual NORCO-4629 in slots 3/4 with 4 lanes. Four PM Enclosures Seagate 320 (10) 7200.10 & Maxline 300 (10) 7V300F0 |
| Area Full | write | read | write | read | write | read |
| empty | 647 | 768 | 586 | 693 | 740 | 755 |
| 10% | 653 | 766 | 601 | 687 | 757 | 755 |
| 20% | 662 | 765 | 601 | 698 | 761 | 753 |
| 30% | 657 | 772 | 602 | 685 | 764 | 756 |
| 40% | 659 | 767 | 602 | 695 | 756 | 757 |
| 50% | 653 | 767 | 602 | 691 | 765 | 763 |
| 60% | 662 | 771 | 602 | 691 | 761 | 765 |
| 70% | 658 | 778 | 600 | 688 | 760 | 772 |
| 80% | 659 | 775 | 600 | 695 | 762 | 776 |
| 90% | 659 | 779 | 599 | 684 | 764 | 778 |
| 100% | 665 | 760 | 599 | 681 | 756 | 760 |
| Average | 658 | 770 | 599 | 690 | 759 | 760 |
| Size | 5.45TB | 5.45TB | 5.45TB | |||
| MSRP | $189 | $299.95 | $378 |