It happens to everyone. You go out and buy yourself a brand new computer, or build it from scratch, then the next big thing is launched, which of course your new hardware doesn’t support. Highpoint looks to solve this age old problem with their new Rocket 600, which brings SATA 6Gb/s to a computer near you.
The next big craze to hit motherboard manufacturers is the SATA 6Gb/s interface. Originally due out in the early summer, there have been numerous delays due to issues with the controllers used. Naturally, it wasn’t until Marvell ironed out these problems that we would see its acceptance into new products, and thus the highly anticipated wave of SATA 6Gb/s supporting motherboards was delayed.
However that leaves those of us who have already upgraded asking what we can do. Highpoint recognized this problem and is tackling it with their new PCI-e expansion cards. Using a single PCI-e 2.0 1x slot, the Rocket 600 allows anyone with a free slot access to these new SATA speeds. Priced around $79.99 USD , it will offer a much cheaper route to obtaining the latest in SATA technology.
The major caveat of this technology is the fact that it only utilizes a PCI-e 2.0 1x slot, meaning a maximum transfer rate of 500MB/s or 4Gb/s+- (the slots bandwidth limitation) split between two ports. Given that consumer level SSD’s are closing in on completely saturating existing SATA2 ports at 3Gb/s, the actual benefit of this card for future storage applications is definitely questionable.
Two varieties will be offered; one type will add two internal 6Gb/s ports , while the other will provide dual third-generation e-SATA external ports instead.
Availability has not yet been announced at the time of this posting.
October 29, 2009 12:47 PM
interesting
October 29, 2009 01:15 PM
Like with any new tech, I suppose it's a chicken and egg scenario, but this sort of thing will be a hard sell until drives are able to actually use the speed. Nevermind the logistics of trying to push PCI-E 2.0 x1 bandwidth through the DMI on some chipsets. They really shot themselves in the foot when SATA 6.0 didn't hit the shelves with P55.
October 29, 2009 01:20 PM
A few of the reviewers have been discussing the benefit of this card internally and thus we amended the original news article.
Here are the facts:
Our esteemed SSD Guru, AkG has pointed out that the limitation of PCIe 2.0 1x is 500MB/s (4Gb/s).
He also pointed out that many high end SSD's are closing in on the existing 3Gb/s transfer speed offered by SATA2 - hence the move to SATA3.
This card has two ports, at 6Gb/s - but the bandwidth limitation of the PCIe slot means, that with both ports filled, your devices are only going to be able to utilize 2Gb/s... this this card may actually hurt the performance of even a midrange dual configuration, and is a really poor solution for a single high end storage device. It is definitely not future proof as we move into faster SSD devices on a near daily basis.
That said, it is one of the few products to support SATA3 devices which may be handy if mechanical drives ever get around to adopting it and it isn't a terrible solution for a single driver solution maxing current SATA2
I believe the deduction above is correct - if wrong obviously feel free to correct me
October 29, 2009 02:41 PM
i was thinking that was going to be a problem
October 29, 2009 03:17 PM
Someone needs to make a 12 port 6Gb/s SATA hardware raid controller in a PCI-E x8 or 16 slot.