Stable many-port SATA controller recommendations

[Dieter]

> after spending time and money on several Promise and Sillicon Image
> based cards that don't work properly,

> WARNING - WRITE_DMA48 UDMA ICRC error (retrying request) LBA=<a number>
...
> I have tried several different SATA cables (since in other contexts
> with other controllers these messages were supposedly often indicative
> of bad cabling).

Are you seeing this same problem on both the Promise and the Silicon
Image?  Have you tried a different brand of disk?  Some combinations of
controller and disk don't work correctly.

I have a Silicon Image 3512 that works fine with NetBSD and Seagate
drives.  Only 2 ports though, and not as fast as it could be.  I
haven't tried it with FreeBSD.

I posted a similar question Wed on -hardware and haven't gotten any
responses.  Interesting that all I've seen are discussions of RAID
controllers and suddenly 2 non-RAID queries in 2 days.

} Looking for some form of SATA controller with good support.
} Currently running FreeBSD 6.2.  Bonus points if it also works well
} with NetBSD & Linux (machine triple boots).  I don't need RAID.
}
} Has there been any progress getting a driver working for Silicon Image 3124?
}
} Or any SATA controller with NCQ?
}
} Do any of the USB to SATA controllers work well under FreeBSD?
} Or 1394/firewire to SATA?
}
} PCI slots are full.  PCIe-x1, USB-2, firewire-400 available.

If I use up a slot, I'd like at least 4 ports and NCQ.
If FreeBSD doesn't have NCQ support yet I might just get a
USB or FW to SATA adapter or two and wait for NCQ.