What PCIe Slot Will Provide Greatest Benefit . .

[Tricone]

Was curious what PCIe slot (4x or 16x) would provide the best performance when installing an internal E-SATA controller card such as this one:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXPCIE6GRS/

In other words, if I install the card in a 16x slot, can it take advantage of the slots "speed", or am I just wasting the slot when a 4x will suffice?

 

[The-Pro]

"*SATA 6Gb/s speeds (600MB/s) will be limited by the PCIe x1 bandwidth (500MB/s total for x1 PCIe 2.0 or 250MB/s total for x1 PCIe 1.0)"
Says that in small print under the product specifications. So looking at that even a PCIe 2.0 x2 would be enough. Even PCIe 2.0 4x is overkill
Place the card into the slot right at the top, that way the more powerful slots are still available for GPU's.
Also may I ask what HDD's you will connect? I ask because most external HDD's have standard SATA II HDD's inside the case. You can usually just take the HDD out of the case and pop it into your Mac Pro. (Older external HDD's will uses IDE interface HDD's and wont work. ) This would make your desk less cluttered and since you have the room in the Mac Pro, why not use it eh?

Of course if you have large storage RAID systems etc. that wont benefit you, just thought I'd mention it. I took apart the three external hard drives and put them inside my Mac Pro, they are faster than over firewire and USB so im happy

 

[Tricone]

Of course if you have large storage RAID systems etc. that wont benefit you, just thought I'd mention it. I took apart the three external hard drives and put them inside my Mac Pro, they are faster than over firewire and USB so im happy

Thanks for the info! Appreciate it. Reading the fine print (like I should have in the beginning), it suggests a PCIe 2.0 slot. It can be attached to a PCIe 1.0 slot, but the speed will be downgraded.

Regarding the RAID, I was planning on using my LaCie 4Big Quadra, which is a large external array/enclosure that . . umm . . takes up desk space. I've been using it with an iMac via FW800, but want to go the eSATA route. I also have a G-Tech 3TB external drive with an eSATA interface. Planning on using one or the other. This eSATA controller card will allow me the flexibility.

 

[The-Pro]

Regarding the RAID, I was planning on using my LaCie 4Big Quadra, which is a large external array/enclosure that . . umm . . takes up desk space. I've been using it with an iMac via FW800, but want to go the eSATA route. I also have a G-Tech 3TB external drive with an eSATA interface. Planning on using one or the other. This eSATA controller card will allow me the flexibility.

well eSATA will deffinetly give you a massive improvement over firewire 800 , especially because my 2.5" portable HDD maxes out FW800 allready, so in RAID systems itl be huge!!
ok I presume that massive thing cant be used inside the macpro
Lots of people dont realise that they can take apart there externals and pop the drives into the mac pro, so I thought id tell you, but you clearly need the eSATA card