Inexpensive PCI SATA, anyone?

[Dieter BSD]

> I'm quite content with all other parts of the box, but controller is
> VERY slow.
>
> Can anyone recommend me inexpensive and reasonably fast PCI SATA with
> 2-4 ports?

> According to dmidecode, the box has PCI-E slot, x4 PCI Express, long.

Note that "PCI" and "PCI Express" are different.

JMicron JMB363 chipset:  NCQ SATA-300 PATA-133 hotplug port multiplier
 2 SATA ports + 1 PATA channel
 works on FreeBSD, ahci(4) driver, NCQ works, port multiplier works, PATA works
 needs PCIe-x1 slot

Silicon Image 3132 chipset: NCQ SATA-300 hotplug port multiplier
 2 SATA ports
 works on FreeBSD, siis(4) driver, NCQ works, port multiplier works
 needs PCIe-x1 slot

Some cards with a single 363 or 3132 chip claim "4 ports", but mean 2 ports
with 4 connectors (2 internal and 2 external). You set jumpers to
select which connectors are active.

Silicon Image 3124 chipset: 4 ports (4 real ports)
  There are at least two types of cards with 3124:
  (1) needs PCI-X slot (wide PCI slot, not to be confused with PCI-Express)
  or (2) needs PCIe-x1 slot (PCI-Express)

A PCIe-x1 card should work fine in a PCI-x4 slot.

363 is a tad faster than 3132.  However 363 has problems with some disks
that 3132 works fine with.  3124 is said to be faster than 3132.
None of these are blindingly fast by 2014 standards.  Neither 363 nor
3132 can saturate PCIe-x1 bandwidth. I would hope that 3124 can?

There is also a EX-3508 card. 8 ports, PCIe-x1, no raid,  sil3132
8 ports would need either 4 3232 chips or a port multiplier.
Photo at www.exsys.ch but I can't make out the chip numbers
and I don't see 4 chips that are the same size.  Sellers appear
to all be in Europe, I didn't find any sellers in USA. (I wasn't
looking for sellers in Russia.)  Anyone know anything about this
card? (or similar cards?)

The 3132 and 3124 are second generation chips.  Note that the first
generation Silicon Image chips are very very slow, and as far as I know,
FreeBSD still doesn't support them properly. (They work fine on NetBSD.
Very slow, but at least they work correctly there.)