AC Ryan SATA+ATA PCI Combo Card ACR-SA5514

Storage/Other by jmke @ 2003-10-29

We test a PCI SATA controller from ACRyan. Allowing you to connect 2 SATA hard drives to any system that has a free PCI slot. Does it perform better or worse then an onboard solution? We installed it and let you know.

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Introduction

Introduction :

Today we take a look at the latest offering from ACRyan. They decided to reach out to the hardware enthusiasts out there and release a PCI SATA Controller.
Their offering is powered by a Silicon Image Chip which goes by the model number of 3112. This particular chip supports 2 SATA hard drives.

But the fun doesn't stop there; ACRyan has added an extra SATA connector at the back of the PCI card, meaning that you can hook up your hard drive without having to open your PC Case.
The second addition which sets this card apart from the rest is the possibility to connect 2 of your older hard drives to this PCI Hard disk controller (if you use the PATA connector you’ll lose one SATA)

Madshrimps (c)


Key features

  • High-speed 150MB/s (1.5Gbps)
  • RAID 0 / 1
  • supports larger than 137GB hard disk
  • external SATA port
  • PATA port available

    Madshrimps (c)



    Specifications:

  • fully compliant with Serial ATA (SATA) 1.0 specification with data rates up to 150MB/s (1.5Gbps)
  • 2 independent SATA channels supporting one SATA device on each channel
  • ATA channel is shared with SATA channel : 1 SATA + 1 ATA channel when ATA is in use
  • supports hard disk larger than 137GB
  • independent 256-byte FIFOs (32bit*64 deep) per Serial ATA channel for host reads and writes compliant with PCI specification 2.2 integrated PCI DMA engines
  • 32bit, 33 / 66 MHz fully compliant PCI host interface
  • RAID operating system drivers : Windows98 / Me / NT4.0 / 2000 / XP
  • RAID 0 (striping) / RAID 1 (mirroring) software included


    the complete Package contains:

    Madshrimps (c)


  • PCI Combo Card
  • English manual
  • driver diskette incl. RAID drivers
  • 1x SATA cable
  • low and normal profile mounting bracket

    Both the addition of the SATA cable and the low profile mounting bracket make this package a very complete offering. You don't need anything else to set everything up, talking of which, let's plug this card in our test system ->



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