five drive esata port multiplier upgrade · hard drive systems to accommodate many more hard drives...
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April 21, 2006
Five Drive eSATA Port Multiplier Upgrade Review: Expanding Enclosure Options Using the Addonics 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier (AD5SAPME) By Arthur Whalem
Addonics is shipping the 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier (PM) (AD5SAPME) for $85. This board enables up to five SATA hard drives to share a single port on a SATA host adapter with port multiplier capability. The Addonics 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier is designed to be used internally in an Addonics Storage Tower or with many of the standard 2 bay or larger SCSI enclosures available on the market. The beauty of the port multiplier is that it enables an SATA host adapter to mount up to five hard drives on a single port.
During this review, an original Apple PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual with a Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P card installed and a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Quad with a Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P card installed were used to evaluate the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier. This article will examine how the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier performs when used with an Apple PowerMac.
System Requirements Works with any System your PM host adapter is compatible with.
Requires a SATA controller that has PM support. Requires a SATA enclosure with space to mount a 5x1 board internally. Requires Silicon Image firmware 1.0114 to work with Sonnet PM cards.
What is SATA PM? A SATA port multiplier also known as "SATA PM" is a device that allows several SATA hard drives to use a single port on a host adapter. Port multipliers typically reside in an enclosure and are transparent to the drives. Port multipliers support all standard SATA hard drives. This allows SATA hard drive systems to accommodate many more hard drives than the direct connect method, which requires a single SATA host adapter port for each hard drive connected.
As you can see in the image above, up to five SATA hard drives can connect to the 5X1 port multiplier board. A single eSATA cable attaches the 5X1 PM board to a port on the SATA PM host adapter, which is mounted on a PCI, PCIX or PCIe expansion slot inside the computer. Simplified cabling allows the host adapter to be connected to as many as five hard drives with a single cable. The host adapter has to be PM compatible for this system to work. Only a few Macintosh host adapters have this capability so far. When using a RAID0 setup, performance is usually not as fast as when using a direct connect system. However, when using SATA PM with "just a bunch of disks" SATA port multiplier hard drive performance is very good.
Install If you purchase the Addonics Storage Tower model ST5X1PM ($199.95) you will find the Addonics 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier (PM) (AD5SAPME) is already installed in the rear of the enclosure. At $199.95 for a four bay enclosure with the port multiplier included, this is a very good deal for those that do not already have an enclosure that the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier will work with.
If you already have a Storage Tower and want to convert it to add port multiplier capability you can purchase the Addonics 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier (PM) (AD5SAPME) for $85 and the Storage Tower PM back panel (ASTBP3) for $9.50. The PM can be screwed to the back panel and the new back panel replaces your previous Storage Tower back panel. This upgrade is very easy to do yourself.
If you have a standard 2bay or greater enclosure with SCSI1 Centronic 50 pin connector(s) on the back panel, the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier is designed to fit where a SCSI port was installed.
Once you have the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier mounted in the enclosure it is time to attach the cables.
Image courtesy of Addonics Technologies
The 5X1 eSATA port multiplier comes with a power cable that can be used to adapt the power connector to a four pin molex connection. However, if you have a Storage Tower you will find that it already has the proper female power connector inside. The next step, is to mount the SATA cables to the port multiplier. The middle SATA connector is for drive A. In the image above, the four SATA connections on the left side are for drives B through E. The top connector is for drive B, with ports C, D and E just below it. On the back, a single eSATA connection is provided. This will connect the enclosure to your computer. For most users that will be all you need to do. However, if your enclosure has drive activity lights or you would like to add them, the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier has connectors that can be used for this purpose.
Drive Activity Lights If you have decided to add drive activity lights to your enclosure or connect existing LEDs to the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier you will need to learn about section JP4 of the circuit board. In the drawing below you will find the LED JP4 pins at the bottom right of the board design.
Image courtesy of Addonics Technologies
The letters A, B, C, D and E in the LED JP4 section of the board correspond to the A, B, C, D and E hard drive SATA ports in the same drawing. The A box in the LED JP4 section consists of two pins. The bottom pin is marked as pin 11 on the board and it is the ground. The top pin is marked as pin 12 on the board. It is the positive connection. The LED ground connector is required to be mounted on pin 11 for the LED to work. Once the LED is connected properly it will glow solid when it detects that a hard drive is connected and it will flash when the hard drive is accessing data. The LED connection feature of the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier can add LED activity lights to enclosures that may not already have this feature.
Using 5x1 LEDs I really like the flexibility of the Addonics Storage tower, but I wish that it provided hard drive activity lights. The Disk Array 3SA and 4SA hard drive cages provide hot swap hard drive mounting capability to the Storage Tower, but they do not supply hard drive activity lights. Using the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier with the Storage Tower can change this.
I purchased several prewired LED cables from PerformancePCS for $3.49 each. Each LED was attached to the LED JP4 pins with the ground on pin 11. This modification easily provides hard drive activity lights. Inside the Storage Tower enclosure, under the power button are four predrilled holes for LED lights. I decided to use this location to mount my activity lights. The new blue LEDs are quite bright and I only wanted a little flicker not a light show.
My solution was to mark the location of the holes on the inner front panel metal sheet with a felt tip marker. Next, I unscrewed the four front screws, taking off the acrylic front panel and the metal front liner. I used a metal drill bit to put a small 3/8" hole for the lights in each of the four marked locations on the front inner liner. If you do not want to drill your Storage Tower front metal lining you could make a template of it out of poster board using any
color you choose. With an exacto knife and scissors you can cut out your new front insert to the correct size and create the new holes for the LEDs. Once you have a liner with the LED holes in it, you can mount the front panel back on the Storage Tower and place each LED in its designated internal mounting. Test the LEDs to make sure they are working in the correct drive sequence. Once they are working correctly, you can use a dab of glue on each LED to hold them in place.
The image below displays the Addonics Storage Tower model ST5X1PM with an Addonics Disk Array 4SA mounted inside. The blue LEDs mounted under the green power light on the right side are powered by the 5X1 PM board. This is one example of how the Addonics 5X1 PM board LED JP4 pins can be utilized.
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Another LED mounting option you might consider would be to use one of the 5.25" drive face plates that come with the Storage Tower as an LED display. Several holes could be drilled in the face plate for mounting LED activity lights. A stationary hard drive could also be installed in the same bay. What I would really like to see is the existing Disk Array 3SA and
4SA hard drive bay power lights have the ability to be connected to pin 11 so that they would provide drive activity lights without requiring additional LEDs.
Host Adapters The Addonics 5x1 eSATA port multiplier uses the Silicon Image 3726 PM chip. This chip requires that the SATA host adapter is port multiplier compatible in order for the hard drives to be mounted on the computer. Macintosh PCIX SATA PM host adapters that are compatible with the Addonics 5x1 eSATA port multiplier include the WiebeTech PC11 card ($139.95) which has one external port and three internal ports and the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P ($299.95) which has four external ports. New PowerMac G5 PCIe models (released Oct. 2005) can use the Sonnet Tempo SATA model E4P ($299.95). The Sonnet E4P and X4P host adapter ports work with direct connections and/or port multiplier connections while the WiebeTech PC11 card only works with PM connections currently. The WiebeTech PC11 card will operate with any version of Silicon Image firmware, while the Sonnet cards require that firmware 1.0114 or higher is installed on the Silicon Image 3726 PM chip. All of the new Addonics 5x1 eSATA port multiplier boards are shipping with firmware version 1.0114, so this should not be an issue. If you obtain a 5x1 board with older firmware you can upgrade it.
Firmware Online The new Sil 3726 firmware is available on the Silicon image web site. It requires a PC to upgrade the firmware, using the command prompt. I was able to upgrade several PM enclosures using the command: "3726FWDownload w d1 3726_1.0114.bin". The port multiplier needs to be connected to an on board SATA port on the PC with at least one drive in the enclosure for version 1.3 of the installer to work. Your setup may require a different command for the drive (d1, d2 and so on). Once the new Sil 3726 firmware is installed the port multiplier will display "Port Multiplier 0x1095 0x3726 0x17 0x06 0x06" in the Mac OS X system log and any hard drives installed in the enclosure will mount with the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P or X4P cards.
PC Host adapters If you have a PC that you want the Addonics 5x1 eSATA port multiplier to work with there are several options available. Addonics compatible host adapters include the ADS3GX4R5E four port PCIX eSATA II $85, AD2SA3GPX1 two port PCIX SATA II $39, ADSA3GPX12E two port PCIe eSATA II $39.99, ADSA3GPX1E, single port PCIe eSATA $39.50, and the ADS3GX4R5 four port PCIX eSATA II for $79.95. These cards are much more competitively priced than the Macintosh PM SATA host adapters.
Stability During this review a Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P and an E4P were used to test how the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier performed when hot swapping drives in and out of the enclosure. When individual drives were mounted in the PM enclosure they were able to be hot swapped in and out
of the enclosure. If all SATA drives were mounted on the desktop and then were ejected and another set was installed, the power to the enclosure needed to be turned off and back on for the new set of drives to be recognized.
When stability was tested with a striped RAID set, the drives were able to be ejected and placed back in the enclosure in a different order. Usually turning the enclosure off and on once the hard drives were mounted back in the enclosure was required for the RAID to mount on the desktop. The SATA hard drives always mounted during a hot swap as long as the enclosures power was reset. When using this setup, I would suggest turning the enclosure off before removing hard drives and turning it back on when you are ready for the drives to mount. When using this method, the SATA hard drives mounted 100% of the time during these tests.
Performance In this test, a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual running Mac OS X 10.4.6 was used with the Addonics Storage Tower with the 5X1 eSATA port multiplier installed along with dual 3SA drive cages. A Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P host adapter was installed in slot 4 of the PowerMac G5. A five drive Maxtor 300GB striped RAID set were created in the Addonics Storage Tower using Disk Utility striped RAID functions. 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 Mac OS X Terminal with a command line executable. Using the command: ./disktester runarea test chunksize 128M testsize 10G deltapercent 10 DriveName, puts DiskTester to work testing how the RAID will perform when empty, 10% full, 20% full and so on. This same test was also run using the PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5GHz and the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P host adapter.
Maxtor 5 Drive 1.36TB PM Striped RAID DiskTester 10GB Test PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz Tempo X4P PowerMac G5
Quad 2.5GHz Tempo E4P
Area Full write read write read empty 226 253 196 253 10% 227 252 197 251 20% 227 252 197 250 30% 227 252 197 253 40% 227 251 196 252 50% 227 251 196 250 60% 227 239 196 238 70% 227 221 196 226 80% 217 202 196 206 90% 191 181 192 167
Results are shown in MB per second. Maxline 300GB model 7L300S0 is used above.
As you can see in the chart above, the original PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz using PCIX has faster write performance when using a port multiplier than the Quad using PCIe. Why is PM PCIe write performance slower? It may be a Silicon Image 3726 issue with the E4P firmware, as this slowdown does not occur when using the direct connect method with SATA hard drives. Until this is fixed, PowerMac G5 systems using the E4P will have a write speed disadvantage when using a five drive port multiplier setup.
The advantage of a port multiplier is that you can use up to five hard drives per port multiplier or up to twenty hard drives with a single four port SATA host adapter. I wanted to measure how a four drive direct connect striped RAID set would compare to a five drive PM enclosure which uses only one port on the host adapter. Next, I wanted to see how a six drive Addonics Dual 3SA would perform using two Addonics 5x1 port multipliers. In each test, the same Dual 3SA enclosure was used in different configurations. The Dual 3SA was used without a PM in the four drive direct connect test. In the five drive PM test a single PM was installed. In the six drive test two PM boards were installed with three drives on each PM. This utilized two ports on the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P host adapter.
DiskTester 10GB Test
Results are shown in MB per second. Maxline 300GB model 7L300S0 drives are used above. Original PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual and Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P were used in this test.
Average 222.3 235.4 195.9 234.6
Four Drive Direct Connect Five Drive One PM Six Drive Two PM Area Full write read write read write read empty 250 250 226 253 333 272 10% 245 245 227 252 337 275 20% 238 239 227 252 326 257 30% 233 233 227 252 312 241 40% 220 221 227 251 296 251 50% 213 213 227 251 288 247 60% 197 198 227 239 267 222 70% 190 190 227 221 258 234 80% 172 172 217 202 232 212 90% 152 152 191 181 206 192 Average 211 211.3 222.3 235.4 285.5 240.3
As you can see in the results above, the six drive dual port multiplier setup using the Addonics Dual 3SA enclosure had the best write speeds. However, read speeds were not dramatically different between the two PM setups. A six drive direct connect setup will perform faster, but it will require a second host adapter, while the "Dual PM" setup only uses two of the four ports. One of the PM boards was mounted on the rear of the enclosure and a second PM was placed inside the enclosure with an eSATA cable coming out of the rear back panel (ASTBP3). It would be nice if a Storage Tower back panel was available that mounted two PM boards, but currently that does not exist.
Using 2 PM vs 2 Direct Connect Enclosures SATA PM performance starts to really shine once two PM enclosures of five drives each are utilized. In this configuration, only two ports on a Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P were utilized with the original PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz and two ports on a Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P were used on a Quad with the same ten drive striped RAID set. The RAID consists of two Addonics Storage Tower model ST5X1PM ($199.95), each with its own PM installed. Five Maxtor Maxline 300GB SATA I model 7L300S0 SATA hard drives were installed in the first PM enclosure and five Maxtor Maxline 300GB SATA II model 7V300F0 drives were installed in the second PM enclosure. The ten hard drives mounted in the two enclosures were used to create a ten disk striped RAID set. DiskTester was used to measure the performance of the original G5 and the Quad using the command: ./disktester runareatest chunksize 128M testsize 10G deltapercent 10 DriveName. Below are the results:
Maxtor 10 Drive Port Multiplier Striped RAID DiskTester 10GB Test
Results are shown in MB per second.
As you can see in the chart above, the original PowerMac G5 outperforms the Quad using the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P and E4P host adapter cards. It is amazing how much better the older PowerMac G5 performs in these port multiplier tests.
PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz Tempo X4P PowerMac G5
Quad 2.5GHz Tempo E4P
Area Full write read write read empty 418 419 350 370 10% 424 460 347 382 20% 414 440 346 388 30% 416 428 347 376 40% 415 420 347 372 50% 414 400 346 349 60% 411 398 347 337 70% 411 351 346 357 80% 414 350 277 246 90% 375 276 241 226 Average 411 394 329 340
For those of you that have existing direct connect enclosures, you may be wondering how eight direct connect drives compares. Using these same Maxtor 300GB hard drives with two host adapters a direct connect eight drive striped RAID was created. The same tests were run as above.
Maxtor 8 Drive Direct Connect Striped RAID DiskTester 10GB Test
Results are shown in MB per second.
If you compare the two charts above, you start to realize that when using a five drive port multiplier with the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P there can be a large performance price to pay. Even when the PM setup has ten drives it does not compete well with the eight drive direct connect setup in this test. When using the PM setup with the original PowerMac G5 PCIX model the story is a little different. While the direct connect method is faster for the first 50% of the striped RAID, after the RAID is more than 50% full the port multiplier setup is faster. If you think you will use a striped RAID set up to 8090% full, then a PM setup with a PCIX bus may be worth considering. These tests were performed with Maxtor 300GB SATA hard drives. Different hard drive models will provide different results. If you are interested in the performance of other hard drive brands and models you may want to read the AMUG E4P review.
External Use Some users would like an external SATA PM converter that would allow them to use their existing direct connect enclosures in a port multiplier configuration. The Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier is NOT designed to work this way. It has an exposed board that is intended for internal use and it requires a 4 pin power adapter. However, I could not resist trying to make this work. As a hack, I
PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0GHz Tempo X4P PowerMac G5
Quad 2.5GHz Tempo E4P
Area Full write read write read empty 506 499 500 499 10% 491 489 486 491 20% 480 480 477 481 30% 467 466 463 467 40% 442 440 437 441 50% 428 426 425 427 60% 396 397 393 397 70% 381 382 377 382 80% 347 346 345 346 90% 306 305 303 305 Average 424 423 420 424
connected two FirmTek SeriTek/1EN2 enclosures to four ports on the Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier using four six inch SATA cables for $1.95 each. Then, I utilized a eSATA to eSATA cable to connect the 5X1 board to the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P host adapter. I powered the board using a power adapter with a four pin molex connector on the end of it. Addonics has these, but you may have to call to order one as I have not seen them on their web site.
With the cables connected, I was ready to try my external PM hack. The four drives in the SeriTek/1EN2 enclosures mounted on the desktop of the PowerMac G5 as if they were in a PM enclosure. I tested the PM hack with four drives against a Storage Tower with an Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier installed. I was unable to tell any difference in performance between the two setups.
Obviously, this setup requires an enclosure with the original SATA "Type L" connectors. An enclosure with eSATA connectors would require more expensive SATA to eSATA converter cables. When you consider that Addonics sells the Storage Tower with a PM already installed for under $200, you do not want to spend too much on this hack. Internal unshielded cables are not recommended for external use. However, my short 6" SATA cables have not given me any trouble so far. As always, this type of hack is at your own risk.
Ultimate PM Performance If you utilize your SATA hard drives as part of a striped RAID solution, you may find that directly connecting each hard drive to its own host adapter port provides the fastest performance. However, this limits the amount of hard drives that you can utilize in a striped RAID set, to the amount of SATA ports that you have available.
The advantage of a port multiplier is that you can connect multiple SATA hard drives to a single port on the host adapter. While SATA PM provides fast FIS (Frame Information Structure)based switching between hard drives on the 5X1 SATA PM board, it is usually a little slower than a direct connect system.
Some users are looking for a way to implement PM with just two drives per port multiplier. This is done in order to keep a striped RAID set running as fast as possible. This setup allows eight SATA hard drives to mount on a single four port SATA PM compatible host adapter. This could be built using an eight drive enclosure and four Addonics 5X1 eSATA Port Multiplier (PM) (AD5SAPME) units mounted in the rear of the enclosure. While I have not seen this concept available prebuilt commercially, it has some performance benefits. The cost of such an enclosure would be $386 for the case and trays plus four Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multipliers at $85 each = $726. While this is more expensive than a traditional SATA enclosure it will allow up to eight drives to mount on a single four port PM host adapter.
In a test using up to twenty Seagate 7200.9 160GB hard drives, several configurations were evaluated using four PM enclosures. If you look at the dark blue line, it represents four PM units mounting eight hard drives. Two hard drives per PM board. The Seagate 7200.9 160GB is one of the best performing PM drives I have seen. Using other hard drive brands or sizes will provide different performance results.
Different hard drive models and/or sizes will provide different performance results. The Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P was used in these tests with a DualCore PowerMac G5 2.0GHz..
Using two SATA hard drives per PM board can provide striped RAID set performance that is almost as fast as when using a direct connection for each hard drive. Port multiplier setups with a dual drive connection provide the fastest PM solution I have seen for striped RAID sets. If you like speed and want to build your own PM setup this may be an idea worth considering.
Discussion The Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier is an awesome option for adding port multiplier capability to a Storage Tower and many of the standard two bay or larger SCSI enclosures available on the market. A port multiplier is great for mounting a large number of disks at the same time. However, when used with a striped RAID set, a five drive PM system will probably be slower than a direct connect system with the same number of hard drives. With that said, SATA PM is a wonderful tool to have available for mounting large drive collections. Being able to use a single host adapter port to mount up to five hard drives is also a cool feature. Having a single eSATA cable that can connect all of the PM hard
drives is another positive feature. If you already have existing direct connect enclosures that meet your needs, SATA PM may not be necessary. However, once you want to add more hard drives than the number of SATA ports that are available on your host adapters, it may be time to consider how SATA PM might enhance your computing experience.
The Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier is a great product. It provides an excellent solution for mounting "just a bunch of disk" and provides an alternative solution for creating striped RAID sets. Using the Addonics Dual 3SA with two port multipliers can provide faster write performance than using five drives on a single SATA PM. Using two drives per port multiplier will provide even faster performance results. The ability of the Storage Tower to work with a PM or as a direct connect enclosure provides the user with the ability to create a solution that works well with any setup. Using a single or several SATA PM boards in a multibay SCSI enclosure or the Storage Tower allows you to build your own PM solution that meets your particular performance requirements.
Pros Works with Addonics Storage Tower. Works with two bay or more SCSI enclosures. Allows a single host adapter port to mount up to five drives. Works with SATA I and SATA II hard drives. Provides drive activity light pins. Supports hot swap and sleep. Utilizes FISbased switching. Works with WiebeTech PC11 SATA host adapter. Works with Sonnet E4P or X4P SATA host adapters. Allows you to use all five ports or just a few. Great JBOD performance. Works with RAID1 or RAID0 Disk Utility created RAID sets. Included with the Addonics Storage Tower model ST5X1PM. Provides nice striped RAID performance with 1020 drive PM setups. The Addonics 5X1 board lets you build a custom SATA PM setup.
Cons PM can be slower than direct connect when used in a striped RAID. Drives that perform well with direct connect may not be as fast with PM. PM usually requires more drives to get the same RAID0 performance. PM write speed with E4P is slower than PM PCIX solutions. Using more host adapters with direct connect may be a faster option.
Addonics 5X1 Port Multiplier gets 5 AMUGs out of 5! The Addonics 5X1 eSATA port multiplier gives you the ability to upgrade your Storage Tower and other compatible SCSI enclosures to work with a port multiplier. At the same time you can always go back to a direct connect setup by simply removing it. Having the ability to add or subtract PM enclosure compatibility provides lots of flexibility. The Addonics 5X1 eSATA
port multiplier allows you to expand the number of disks you can use to five for each port on your host adapter. With this capability even the largest SATA hard drive collections can be accommodated.
Contact Information: Addonics Technologies 2466 Kruse Drive, San Jose, CA 95131 USA 4084333899 [email protected] http://www.addonics.com
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