Models: StarTech PEXSAT34RH And PEXSAT34SFF PCIe SATA III RAID Controller Cards
Manufacturer: StarTech.com
Provided By: StarTech.com

If you've ever gone shopping for a hard to find part or cable for your computer, chances are you've come across the name StarTech. Founded in 1985 by Paul Seed and Ken Kalopsis, StarTech is an ISO 9001 registered manufacturer of hard-to-find connectivity parts for the IT and professional A/V industries. From the latest technology to legacy products, the company offers a broad range of products and is dedicated to making it easy for IT professionals to identify, find and get the parts they need to enable their solutions.

This spring, StarTech introduced two new PCI Express SATA RAID controller cards. Based on Marvell's 88SE9230, the PEXSAT34RH and PEXSAT34SFF are fully compliant with the SATA 3.0 specifications and support hardware RAID 0, 1, and 1+0 modes. Port Multiplier FIS-based and Command-based switching is also supported on all ports, enabling multiple SATA drives to be connected using a single cable, for a total of 7 drives. Where the PEXSAT34RH and PEXSAT34SFF differ is the number and type of internal ports. Where the PEXSAT34RH has four SATA 6Gbps ports, the PEXSAT34SFF has a single Mini-SAS (SFF-8087) port that can be used with a Mini-SAS to 4x SATA breakout cable or Mini-SAS SFF-8087 backplane.

The PEXSAT34RH and PEXSAT34SFF also feature support for Marvell's HyperDuo SSD auto-tiering technology, which balances the performance advantages of SSD storage with the cost-effectiveness and large capacity of standard hard drives. The technology uses intelligent algorithms to automatically migrate hot data to SSDs, while enabling all data to be safely stored on larger capacity hard drives.

   StarTech PCIe SATA III RAID Controller Cards With HyperDuo
General Specifications
Part Numbers PEXSAT34RH
PEXSAT34SFF
Bus Type PCI Express
Card Type Standard Profile
Chipset Marvell 88SE9230
Industry Standards PCI Express 2.0
Serial ATA 3.0 specification

Connectors
Connector Type PCI Express x2 Male
Internal Ports 4x SATA (PEXSAT34RH)
1x Mini-SAS (PEXSAT34SFF)

Performance
RAID Modes JBOD - (Just a Bunch of Disks)
RAID 1 (Mirrored Disks)
RAID 0 (Striped Disks)
RAID 10 (1+0; Striped set of Mirrored Subset)
LBA Support 48-bit
Max Drive Capacity Up to 4TB per drive
Type and Rate SATA III (6 Gbps)

Environmental
Operating Temperature 5 ºC to 50 ºC
Storage Temperature -25 ºC to 70 ºC
Humidity 20% ~ 80% RH

Dimensions and Weight
Dimensions 20 x 70 x 120 mm (0.8 x 2.8 x 4.7 in)
Weight 50g (PEXSAT34RH)
40g (PEXSAT34SFF)

Other Features
Supports HyperDuo SSD auto-tiering technology
Port Multiplier FIS-based and Command-based switching supported
Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and ATA/ATAPI commands
Supports HDDs/SSDs/Optical/Blu-ray drives
LED headers for HDD activity LED indicators
Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Two year warranty

Box Contents:

StarTech's SATA RAID controller cards come in small, white and yellow boxes. The boxes provide a brief description of the cards and show them from various angles. However, there is very little information regarding their specifications and features.

 

The contents of both boxes are very similar. Along with the RAID card, you get a low profile bracket, driver CD and a printed instruction manual. Take note that neither card includes any cables.


StarTech PEXSAT34RH
 
StarTech PEXSAT34SFF

Physical Features:

The PEXSAT34RH and PEXSAT34SFF are pretty similar for the most part. Both cards are based on Marvell's 88SE9230 chipset and are equipped with a PCI Express 2.0 connector. Aside from the type and number of ports, the most notable difference is the heatsink covering the 88SE9230 chipset on the PEXSAT34RH. I'm not really sure why the PEXSAT34SFF does not have a heatsink, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the location of the chipset and the size of the Mini SAS connector.


StarTech PEXSAT34RH
 
StarTech PEXSAT34SFF

From the rear you can see the four SATA III (6Gbps) ports on the PEXSAT34RH as well as the Mini SAS (SFF-8087) connector on the PEXSAT34SFF. With its Port Multiplier feature, the PEXSAT34SFF lets you connect up to four SATA drives using a single breakout cable.


StarTech PEXSAT34RH
 
StarTech PEXSAT34SFF

Installing the StarTech's new RAID card is pretty straightforward. To begin, shut down your system, unplug the power cord and open your computer’s case. Next, insert the card in an available PCIe x4 slot and secure it into place. Once that is done, you can connect SATA cables from the card to the hard drives and SSDs in your computer and then close up the case, reconnect the power cord and turn the system back on.

The next step is to install the drivers which are located on the driver CD. If you don't have the CD handy, the latest version of the drivers can also be downloaded from StarTech's website. To install the driver, go into the "Marvell_88SE9230" folder and run "drvSetup.exe." The Setup program will then take you step by step through the installation process.


If you're not going to use the card's RAID or HyperDuo capabilities, there really isn't anything else you need to do. By default, any hard drive or SSD connected to the card will function as an individual SATA storage device.

Before creating a RAID volume or HyperDuo virtual disk, you will want to install Marvell's Storage Utility (MSU). This can also be done through the card's BIOS, but it's much easier to use this browser-based management utility. The MSU is included with the drivers but is a separate install.


To open the MSU, double click on the desktop shortcut or the tray application icon. When prompted, login using an account with administrator rights.

While the look of the MSU is a bit dated, it's very easy to use. The utility uses a tree view to list and show the relationships between the various physical/virtual devices attached to the system.

Creating RAID volumes and HyperDuo virtual disks is very easy from within the MSU. Simply select the adapter, and then roll-over the Operation tab to "Create RAID", "Create HyperDuo" or use the "Quick Create Wizard".

Creating a RAID volume is pretty straightforward. If you use the "Create Wizard", the MSU asks whether you want the volume to be optimized for performance or reliability and then create it using some or all available physical disks. Selecting "Create RAID" gives you a bit more flexibility. Along with the ability to manually select which disks to use and the RAID level, you can specify the stripe size and initialization method.

Creating a HyperDuo virtual disk is a bit more involved. To begin, select the physical disks you want to use. Keep in mind that HyperDuo requires at least one SSD for each hard drive. Along with the disks, you will need to specify the mode (Safe or Capacity) and the threshold, which is the percentage of the SSD used to optimize performance. Also, if you're using Safe mode, you can tell it to keep your existing data. However, it can take up to 30 minutes to initialize the disk.

While HyperDuo does a pretty good job of optimizing your data, you can go into the HyperDuo Service and manually select folders and programs that should always be accelerated. Along the same lines, you can specify folders and programs that should never be optimized. 


The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.

With the PEXSAT34SFF requiring an additional Mini SAS breakout cable, we will only be testing the PEXSAT34RH. To test the card, I ran a series of benchmarks with CrystalDiskMark 3.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46 and Iometer using SanDisk's Extreme II SSD and a pair of Seagate Barracuda 1TB (ST1000DM003) hard drives. The drives were tested individually, with the two hard drives in RAID and then with HyperDuo enabled.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 4KB and 512KB in size.


Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - StarTech SATA

Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - Intel SATA


SanDisk Extreme II SSD - StarTech SATA

SanDisk Extreme II SSD - Intel SATA

Looking at the screenshots above you can see that StarTech's RAID controller did not perform as well as the onboard Intel SATA controller. The difference was only 16-18 MB/s when testing with the hard drive but this grew to more than 144 MB/s with SanDisk's Extreme II SSD.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PEXSAT34RH's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 32MB and 256MB.


Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - StarTech SATA

Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - Intel SATA


SanDisk Extreme II SSD - StarTech SATA

SanDisk Extreme II SSD - Intel SATA

The performance with ATTO was very similar to what we saw with CrystalDiskMark. Compared to the onboard Intel SATA controller, StarTech's RAID controller was a good 15 MB/s slower when tested with the hard drive and about 150 MB/s slower with the SSD.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the PEXSAT34RH's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

At this point, the results really shouldn't be too surprising. Even with Iometer, StarTech's RAID controller was slower than the onboard Intel SATA controller when doing sequential reads and writes.

StarTech's RAID controller also lagged well behind when doing random reads and writes with SanDisk's Extreme II SSD. In our tests, we saw a performance difference of more than 113 MB/s and nearly 30,000 IOPS.


To test the PEXSAT34RH's RAID performance, a pair of Seagate Barracuda 1TB (ST1000DM003) hard drives were used. The tests were first run with the drives configured as RAID 0 volume and then again as a RAID 1 volume.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 4KB and 512KB in size.


RAID 0

RAID 1


Individual Disk

The two hard drives performed very well when configured as a RAID 0 volume. In our tests, they were able to read at 340.1 MB/s and write at 330.6 MB/s. The two drives weren't nearly as fast when mirrored in a RAID 1 array. As you can see, the sequential read and write speeds were slightly slower than what we saw with a single disk.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PEXSAT34RH's sequential read and write speeds when using RAID. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 32MB and 256MB.


RAID 0

RAID 1


Individual Disk

When configured as a RAID 0 array, the two hard drives were able to read at 389 MB/s and write at 358 MB/s. The read speeds were also surprisingly good when using RAID 1. However, the write speed dropped to 184 MB/s.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the PEXSAT34RH's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

When configured as a RAID 0 array, the two drives were able to read at 225.09 MB/s and write at 176.36 MB/s. They were also able to read at a respectable 229.55 MB/s when in RAID 1. However, the write speed dropped to 101.71 MB/s, which is slower than what we saw with a single drive.


When enabling HyperDuo you can select from two modes: Capacity and Safe. Where the Safe Mode automatically mirrors the data from the SSD to the hard drive for maximum protection, the Capacity Mode utilizes the full capacity of both the SSD and hard drive, and offers better performance. For this review, we're going to test HyperDuo in both modes using a single hard drive and SSD.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 4KB and 512KB in size.


HyperDuo - Capacity Mode

HyperDuo - Safe Mode


SanDisk Extreme II SSD - StarTech SATA

Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - StarTech SATA

HyperDuo performed surprisingly well in our tests. When in Capacity mode, we were able to read at 367 MB/s and write at 336 MB/s. The read speeds were also quite good in Safe mode. However, with HyperDuo mirroring the data to both the SSD and hard drive, the write speeds dropped considerably.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PEXSAT34RH's sequential read and write speeds when using HyperDuo. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 32MB and 256MB.


HyperDuo - Capacity Mode

HyperDuo - Safety Mode


SanDisk Extreme II SSD - StarTech SATA

Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive - StarTech SATA

With HyperDuo in Capacity mode, the hard drive and SSD topped out at 410 MB/s when reading and 362 MB/s when writing. Switching to Safe mode had a considerable impact on the write speeds. However, we were still able to read at 412 MB/s.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the PEXSAT34RH's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

The results here were very similar to what we saw in our other tests. When in Capacity mode, we were able to read at 365.93 MB/s and write at 352.69 MB/s. The read speeds were slightly faster in Safe Mode. However, the write speeds dropped to 144.90 MB/s.

HyperDuo also gave our test system a considerable performance boost when doing random reads and writes. When in Capacity mode, we were able to read at 77.68 MB/s and write at 125.13 MB/s. The random read speeds were also quite good in Safe Mode. However, the write speeds dropped to a mere 1.4 MB/s. Needless to say, if random write performance is important to you, Capacity mode is the way to go.


To give you an idea how HyperDuo compares to some of the other SSD caching solutions we've reviewed, I ran a few tests using PCMark Vantage. The software measures the performance of the latest PC hardware across a variety of common scenarios. It supports both system level and component level benchmarking and comprises several different test suites, including one with eight separate tests that simulate common hard drive usage.

Keep in mind that these scores are going to vary greatly depending on what hard drive and SSD you using. However, in this apples to oranges comparison, you can see that HyperDuo had a considerable advantage over the SanDisk ReadyCache and OCZ Synapse Cache when in Capacity mode. It also performed equally well the first time as it on its second or third time, but this could also change depending on how full your hard drive is.

Final Thoughts:

StarTech's new PCI Express SATA RAID controller cards are best suited for the small office or home user looking to add support for SATA 6Gbps or RAID to an older computer. Those with a newer, Intel-based computers are probably going to be better off using the onboard SATA controller. As you saw in our tests, the PEXSAT34RH had a hard time keeping up with the SATA controller on our test computer. The performance difference was relatively small with hard drives, but transfer rates dropped by as much as 150 MB/s when used with an SSD. There were no real surprises when using the PEXSAT34RH's RAID capabilities. Considering its performance with a single SATA hard drive, the card performed as expected in both RAID 0 and 1.

What really makes StarTech's new PCI Express SATA RAID controller cards stand out is their support for Marvell's HyperDuo technology. This hardware-based SSD acceleration technology worked surprisingly well in our tests. When in Capacity mode, it not only used the full capacity of both the SSD and hard drive, it delivered performance that was nearly on par with SSD by itself. The performance wasn't nearly as impressive when HyperDuo was in Safe mode. However, this does add an extra layer of protection by mirroring data from the SSD onto the hard drive. HyperDuo can also be combined with RAID but requires an additional SSD to do so.

Aside from the mediocre SATA performance, the only real complaint I have about StarTech's new PCI Express SATA RAID controller cards is the price. The PEXSAT34RH and PEXSAT34SFF currently go for $80 and $104, respectively, on Amazon. Similar solutions from SYBA and HighPoint cost, in some cases, half as much and include extras like cables.

Highs:

  • Mavell 88SE9230 chipset with HyperDuo SSD auto-tiering technology
  • Supports JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 1+0
  • PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface
  • Four SATA 6Gb/s ports (PEXSAT34RH only)
  • Near SSD level performance with HyperDuo in Capacity mode
  • Port Multiplier supports up to 7 devices
  • Can be configured via BIOS or management utility
  • Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
  • Includes low profile bracket
  • 2 year warranty

Lows:

  • Mediocre SATA performance
  • HyperDuo is Windows only
  • Does not include any cables
  • HyperDuo has little impact on write speeds in Safe mode
  • Pricey