Meet the Addonics 5 Port HPM-XA
The HPM-XA is designed to connect up to 5 SATA hard disks or DVD drives to a single SATA port.
This is the “System” version – it’s mounted on a normal expansion slot bracket. It uses a floppy drive power connector rather than drawing power from a PCI or PCI Express slot; it attaches to one of the motherboard internal SATA ports; and it connects to up to 5 SATA disk drives (or DVD drives).
The “Enclosure” version is mounted on a bracket suitable for screwing into the back of an external case (the “SCSI-1” form factor), and provides an eSATA port to connect to your computer’s eSATA port. It then connects to up to 5 SATA disks in the enclosure.
Apart from their host connectivity, the units are identical; we’ll focus on the System version as that’s the one we got the chance to use.
The controller has more jumper pins than you can poke a stick at. 10 pins provide activity LEDs and a further 10 provide error status. 12 pins form a jumper block that configures the RAID level, whether that RAID level is controlled by software or by the controller itself, automatic rebuild to a hot spare and whether a failed disk produces an error beep.
As for a choice of RAID levels, the Addonics controller does not disappoint.
- With 2 disks we can run RAID 0 or RAID 1.
- With 3 disks we can run RAID 3 or RAID 5.
- With 4 disks we can run RAID 3, RAID 3 with a spare disk, RAID 5, RAID 5 with a spare disk or RAID 10.
- With 5 disks we can run RAID 3, RAID 3 with a spare disk, RAID 5, RAID 5 with a spare disk or RAID 10 with a spare disk.
The controller also supports some less common functionality, such as:
- Clone mode – in which writing to the disk writes to all of the disks – a three, four or even 5 disk mirror.
- JBOD mode – in which the disks are concatenated (the risk of data loss with RAID 0 without the performance benefits).
- Port Multiplier mode, which works with Silicon Image controllers (such as the quite common SiI3124 and SiI3132 controllers) and makes the disks appear as individual disks so you can create other configurations using your computer’s operating system.
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|70.114.239.xxx |2009-12-30 06:46:59 outcast2k - product review gaps?good start on covering some of the basics. some other detais that would be good to know:
1) how long does a RAID rebuild take?
2) how do you tell how far a rebuild has left?
3) how do you tell which disk failed?
4) does the software UI handle 2+ HDM-XA's in the system?
5) how do you recover the RAID if the HDM-XA itself has failed and needs to be replaced?
6) what's the biggest sized drives supported? 2TB?
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|219.90.134.xxx |2010-03-07 23:17:32 TERRABYTEONE - ?? 3132 pciex1 card max output is 190mb/seciv tested this.. etc..
sil 3132 pci-e x1 card )(addtronics one) or jmb 363 or highpoint 4 port x1 2300 raid card.
max oot put is 190mb sec total.. and if using 2 ports its 95mb/sec..
tested this using 4x volir wd 300g hdd
(they get each 109mb/sec)
so if using both e-sata ports.. transfer maxes out at 190mb.sec..
if using 4 hdd in raid 0 etc... max output for 4x vr 300 on intel on-board raid (x48 chipset) 500+mb/sec..
on sil using this product is.. 90mb/sec.
als tryed 4x 1.5 tb 7200.11 hdd..max out at 90mb/sec
also tryed raid 5.. 90mb/sec.
2tb hdd supported. but hardware or nonhardware raid the sil raid gear does not support partitions bigger than 2tb.(old design)
to get 6 tb hdd spac out of in i raid 0 (4x 1.5tb)
i hd to make 4 partitions .. the software is limited in what size to make. it..it was tricky.. i had to make partitin/volumns 2+ then delet and recreat smaller ones. in aparticular order.
they need to update thar raid cards. (chan...
Thanks for the great write up!