64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!

[MacTron]

64 bits PCI on G4 working and confirmed!
I put two SSD (Samsumg SSD 840 120 GB) in RAID 0 (stripe)  mode connected to a Seritek 1eVE2+2


http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/pr/launch/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1EVE22/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1EVE22/Compatibility

And it achieve a 190 MB/s of transfer rate!

This is clear over the 133 MB/s of peak transfer rate on the  32 bit bus. So the card and the PCI bus was working at 64 bits!

I know this is far from the max peak transfer rate on the 64 bits (266 MB/s) but the working 64 bits PCI on the G4 are at last confirmed!

[supernova777]

very cool.. taking g4s into the next level 

i will see about testing a highpoint pci-x raid controller
wait -- how did u implement the raid0?
it says its supported by third party software??

are u booting from the raid0 too?

my sawtooth g4 is much much faster over pci 32bit sata with a normal seagate sata2 drive

i will have to test the acard 32bit 6890m hardware raid card very soon... maybe i will buy a few new ssd just for test then return LOL

[Protools5LEGuy]

The average PowerMac user in 2014 spend 10 Euros on a chinese generic SIL 3112 33Mhz pci for 2 sata port for use it at 40/70 Mb/s. It is required to flash it on a PC. I am afraid to ask how much did you spend in this SATA interface.
 
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1690231
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350942606508?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

From the years I studied Video Edition, DV codec video "waste" 25Mb/s for every layer. 190Mb/s means 7-8 DV video layers...   

In Audio is a Quantum Leap. For sure it let you use in Logic 8-16 tracks in 192kHz audio.

I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.

I have the feeling that a PowerMac with all the pci ports ocupied is less stable than one with a AGP card and a sound card. Maybe is my PSU. Maybe less component lead to less possible failures.

Show us your G4 setup (I guess is a MDD dual at 1.48-1., yours pci cards used at the same time. Maybe is just a question of get rid of garbage pci cards.

I readed somewhere that in Magma chassis setup you should not install a pci to scsi-ata-sata in the chassis. It should be installed inside the PM.

In the past I filled every pci socket on my GHz dual. Now I feel a barebone G4 Digital Audio is enought to 24 tracks@[email protected] with the stock ATA-66 for audio and the boot disk under the CD. (In this way you can access later the IDE-0 disk booting in Transfer Disk Mode)

On the other hand given the price of the seritek and the price of 2 SSD@120gb perhaps for a RAID setup is cheaper 2 (or 3) 33Mhz sil 3112 pci cards.

[supernova777]

In the past I filled every pci socket on my GHz dual. Now I feel a barebone G4 Digital Audio is enought to 24 tracks@[email protected] with the stock ATA-66 for audio and the boot disk under the CD. (In this way you can access later the IDE-0 disk booting in Transfer Disk Mode)

On the other hand given the price of the seritek and the price of 2 SSD@120gb perhaps for a RAID setup is cheaper 2 (or 3) 33Mhz sil 3112 pci cards.

pretty sure sata1 vs ATA-66 there is no comparison.. in my opinion any g3 or g4 will run better +faster using pci-sata card
for boot disk rather then using the ancient ATA-66 IDE connection.
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9908/990823ata66vs33a.html

^ according to this article 66 means simply top speed of 66mb/s, 33= 33mb/s, same for 100, 133 etc

 my sawtooth g4 AGP 450mhz runs so much nicer now that
i cloned the drive to the sata2 hard drive connected via PCI-SAta interface.
ata-66 ancient technology man... we are talking what.. 1997? and its the biggest weakness of the machine imo.. the weakest link.. stopping performance..
im sure new young techno-kids would say the weakeest link is the cpu .. for hte years 2000-2005 the slowest part of a computer
has always been the disk performance... now that we have sata2 + sata3 capable hard drives... why would u run ata-66?
they outperform ATA-66 by so much

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9908/990823ata66vs33b.html
lol Quantum fireball. i havent heard thse words in forever;) lol

according to these articles
ata-33= 1997
ata-66= 1999

[Protools5LEGuy]

 now that we have sata2 + sata3 capable hard drives... why would u run ata-66?
they outperform ATA-66 by so much

I keep my Sata drives on intels. Ata and SCSI on PMs

[Protools5LEGuy]

I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong. 

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

I did not test enought my Audiophile 24/96 on OS9, but 4 audio streams at 24bits @96kHz is just same as 8 audio streams 24bits@48kHz.

I guess with this Seritek 1eVE2+2 you can make a HUGE sampler and take the machine to a higher ground. Congratz Mactron!

[supernova777]

I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong. 

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

which machien are you talking about with this no pci card theory?
honestly i think your thinking is REALLY backwards on this... !
WHICH machine are u talking about having audio problems at 8 tracks?

this could be related to RAM (see my post recently about having ram sticks that are from different manufacturers)
could be related to using a disk that has poor performance

i would say its a combination of both of those things...
but usually MOST OF MY problems with computers have alwayst been related to poor disks
hard drives in general i dotn trust ..thats why its important for me to have SATA
so i can buy a new drive and replace if i need t
in my area a brand new 80gb drive can be bought at the store for 15$ now
brand new SATA2 (maybe even sata3?)

try a brand new SATA2/3 hard drive + clean matched ram
on any machine i  think this would fix problems such as that.. dont try to leave the pci bus empty.. that makes no sense??
by the same logic u might aswell leave hte machine powered off and dont use the Power supply  lol

I did not test enought my Audiophile 24/96 on OS9, but 4 audio streams at 24bits @96kHz is just same as 8 audio streams 24bits@48kHz.

I guess with this Seritek 1eVE2+2 you can make a HUGE sampler and take the machine to a higher ground. Congratz Mactron!

u wait untill i post tests of SSD Raid 0 on my ACARD 6890M card.. which is only 32bit PCI and we will see if it is
indeed limited to 133mb/s as mactron has theorized.. i have a hunch this is incorrect and that this card will outperform this limitation.. but.. he may be right.. or he may not be;) we will see shortly when i try this with 2 ssd..
perhaps i will even buy the same brand + model of SSD that he did to make it a proper fair test.

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve2plus2/SeriTek1VE2plus2.jpg
vs
http://www.macway.com/images/products_new/CAR/ACA/CARACA0001/CARACA0001_zoom_MW_0.jpg

these 32bit pci sata cards promise 1.5Gbit/s *PER PORT*
so that means using both ports in raid0 = 300MB/s
but that is top potential theoretical i think
but let me pause to review some facts:

SATA revision 1.0 - 1.5 Gbit/s - 150 MB/s
SATA revision 2.0 - 3.0 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s
SATA revision 3.0 - 6.0 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Conventional PCI buses operate with the following bandwidths:

    PCI 32-bit, 33 MHz: 1067 Mbit/s or 133.33 MB/s
    PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 33 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s

this page talks about a pci-x v2.0 spec that actually added support for PCI-X

In 2003, the PCI SIG ratified PCI-X 2.0. It adds 266-MHz and 533-MHz variants, yielding roughly 2,132 MB/s and 4,266 MB/s throughput, respectively. ---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-X

but it appears that the world skipped this pci-x v2.0 and went straight to pci-express, so it seems they basically took this technology + shrunk it down to have a smaller connector + called it pci-e express

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths#Computer_buses

    SATA (SATA-150): 150 MB/s
    SATA (SATA-300): 300 MB/s
    Fast Ethernet (100base-X): 11.6 MB/s
    Gig-E (1000base-X): 125 MB/s

and remember this image:


as u can see we are really talking about
32 bit card (my acard 6890m)
vs
64 bit card (mactrons firmtek)

but mactron is thinking that my 32bit card is limited to 33mhz which isnt the case
as u can see:
PCI 32-bit, 66 MHz: 266 MB/s
the top speed for 32 bit card is actually 266mb/s in 66mhz mode
(thats why they promise 1.5gb/s per port but in reality this would be closer 133mb/s per port if both ports being used at the same time nad thats why u will never see a sata2 3g/s 32bit pci card because its impossible unless the card only has one port and even then it would be *under* the spec of sata2 by about 40mb/s)
which is the same as the 64bit card if the 64bit is being used at 33Mhz..
(which it probably isnt)
so this means that this 190mb/s mactron achieved is NOWHERE NEAR THE POTENTIAL OF THIS CARD
PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s
as top speed for 64bit card at 66mhz would be: 533 MB/s

[Protools5LEGuy]

which machien are you talking about with this no pci card theory?
honestly i think your thinking is REALLY backwards on this... !
WHICH machine are u talking about having audio problems at 8 tracks?

I dare you to install a Guillemot Maxi Sound Isis on a Amd or a Via chipset. 

I have no problem with my PowerMacs. I dont force them too...When they dont bong I reset PRAM 3 times and they live again like if they where frozen in 2002!

I open protools with digi001, create 8 aux and route analog to ADAT with a PMG3@350MHz. I use my G3 as "analog-adat converter" and dont need more bandwidth there.

My GHz dual is my "DSP factory" with an AudiomediaIII and a Audiophile24/96 Logic/Protools Os9/OsX. Before the 001 was there. This machine sometimes is my "BigBen" with the infamous clock from the AMIII on my Focusrite Liquid Saphire 56 via SPDIF. When I use inside protools 5 virtual instruments at direct connect 128 the computer gets to its knees. I prefer use PT as multitrack in PT9 AND use Virtual Instruments from Mac OS9 via Logic with 2 computers. One Multitracker with SATA-2 native, Quad processor for RTAS, UAD-1 with latency compensated. And the DSP and character of all MacOS9 goodness in logic 6 spice and protools rtas I can run. I have 3 DAWs all rooted. If I booted them all in OSX I would not need any midi interface because I have them all networked. I am happy to have enough AudioInterfaces for all my machines.   
I will put all Mactron 32 gigs and the rest on it.  All my powermacs have no monitor. I access them thru VNC. This will make my G4 the best sampler ever saw on a DigitalAudio box.   
Sorry been off-topic.

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.

A 5 IDE Raid-0 is also possible using the full cd caddy, but should be the bottleneck. So my test will be 4 ide Raid-0
A n-array raid setup is n-times as fast as the slowest drive. A 4 drive ata66/100 setup should be 4x the speed of a ata66 port, so should peak with SSD-ATA drives at 66+66=132. I will make with 7200rpm drives

[supernova777]

Next winter I will try a RAID-0 setup with 4 IDE 7200 drives on a MDD the ATA66 and ATA100 having boot on the CD-ROM caddy just to see MB/s can give a softraid.

A 5 IDE Raid-0 is also possible using the full cd caddy, but should be the bottleneck. So my test will be 4 ide Raid-0
A n-array raid setup is n-times as fast as the slowest drive. A 4 drive ata66/100 setup should be 4x the speed of a ata66 port, so should peak with SSD-ATA drives at 66+66=132. I will make with 7200rpm drives

i have a 4x 7200 RPM RAID5 on xp that i just built the otehr day.. but i am getting one more harddrive to make all 4 drives the exact same WD2500JB model for consistancy..
i can do some speed tests but i woudlnt expect that it would be mindblowing!! i think they are connected to a ata-66 or ata-100 port definately not a ATA133..

i have read articles just in the last week stating (and showing benchmarks proving) that ATA devices are so slow that there is virtually NO BENEFIT AT ALL to running IDE devices in RAID other then to join the disks capacity.. speed wise.. they operate at the same speed if not slower then a single drive ... and these were articles that were made in around 2001-2002.... because all hard drives around that time were just.. not that great at all.. the reason why people even in 2000/2001/2002 still had use for SCSI drives that were actually still faster then ATA drives..
because ata drives SUCKED untill when?? probably around 2003 they started to get better?
id like to look that up.. ie: approximately what time did ATA drives surpass SCSI drive for performance?

[Knezzen]

At least when it comes to tracking, im pretty sure that two PATA drives (preferably 7200rpm) is enough.
I have a 120gb 7200rpm for system and apps and one 250gb 7200rpm for audio and recording.

This is enough for me and my MDD to be able to record 64 mono tracks or 32 stereo tracks at the same time in 48khz and 24bit.
I have though about getting SSD's or RAID two rotating drives on a SATA card, but I can't justify it since what I have now works without any problems

Sorry If I went off topic, just wanted to share my experiences.

[Jakl]

This question is for Mactron: Is this all on Macos9?
If so what RAID software system are you using?

Thanks

[supernova777]

The average PowerMac user in 2014 spend 10 Euros on a chinese generic SIL 3112 33Mhz pci for 2 sata port for use it at 40/70 Mb/s. It is required to flash it on a PC. I am afraid to ask how much did you spend in this SATA interface.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1690231

interesting that u post this, it seems they have taken the firmware from this card:

CRU / WIEBETECH

http://www.pcsuperstore.com/products/10574347-CRU-TCS20.html
Call for Availability

Item Number: q90239
Vendor Number: 30300-0400-0000
Vendor: CRU-WIEBETECH

i was previously unaware of this card.. even tho its mostly about the cards bios firmware,
looking closely at the transistor/capacitor layout on this card its very similar to the ones that i have that were programmed for me by "dougg3" http://www.downtowndougbrown.com/ a guy from
the 68k mac forums site... (u can see the original thread that resulted in that here: https://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21488)
he said he had to physically change the bios chip to be able to fit the FIRMTEK/SERITEK firmware onto the card..
the firmtek/seritek firmware is the best for os9 because u can boot from both ports
from what i read on that thread... it seems only one of the ports is bootable on the weibetech firmware..
but it seems it is bootable! at least in X... not sure if the people who posted were talking of X or 9..
the screenshots would suggest that they are only trying to boot X. we should try to contact http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?u=612797
as hes a member of our forums as well http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=profile;u=5 and he would know the details for sure. whether this card is capable to boot 9.
but im pretty sure that simply flashing a 3112 card with this firmware isnt equivelent to the firmtek/seritek os9 firmware
and like i said from what i was told the actual bios chip needed to be changed to be able to flash the rom as its bigger in size and was unable to be reduced in size by people who tried to make it fit. but this is all offtopic from this thread..  and deserves its own thread;)

but one things for certain, my SIL3112 card is on duty right now in my powermac g4 sawtooth, and its booting os 9.2 thats for sure;)
but if i look at this card in osx, it will say SeriTek1S2 as the identifier and it thinks its a 1S2 firmtek card
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1s2/


as u can see visually very similar to the wiebetech/cru card above.. they are all similar to each other its the firmware/bios that makes the difference

[supernova777]

i referred back to the original thread where we started discussing this just now (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=306.0)

quote from everymac.com re: g4 450mhz
"In the default configuration, this model has three open 33 MHz 64-bit PCI slots, and a 133 MHz 2X AGP slot occupied by the graphics card. It also has an open AirPort (802.11b) expansion slot."
so that is why these are not pci-x slots.. because pci-x is 66mhz 64-bit i think?

and it seems that these slots are not 66mhz at all.. so my theory of  266mb/s for a 32 bit card is not possible in a g4 apparently!  (but would be possible if the 32bit card was put into a 66mhz capable slot such as those in any 2003+ pc motherboard or a g5 slot is probably 66mhz capable at 32bit)
so that means that mactrons pci-x card, while compatible with a g4, is functioning at its lowest speed thruput (33mhz operation), and would work much faster in a non-g4 computer (such as a g5.. )

  PCI 64-bit, 33 MHz: 266 MB/s
    PCI 64-bit, 66 MHz: 533 MB/s --speed it would work at in a 66mhz capable slot

if we take a look at (for example) my g5s specs:

This model has "three open full-length PCI-X slots: one 133MHz, 64-bit slot and two 100MHz, 64-bit slots", an 8X AGP Pro slot that "supports up to 2-GBps data throughput" and is occupied by the graphics card, as well as expansion slots for AirPort Extreme (802.11g) and Bluetooth 1.1. --source: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_1.8.html

so the slots in g5 are able to operate at these higher 100+ mhz speeds.. strange they seemed to skip over 66mhz speed slots entirely.. as even the last mdds all had 33mhz slots..
and then the g5s.. they made with 100-133mhz slots..

but one thing is for sure.. my 32bit card would perform better in a g5.. so if i can get a 64bit card to run in my g4..and put the existing card i have in a g5.. they would both run at 266mb/s.. as the 32bit card running at 66mhz.. and the 64bit card running at 33mhz.. would be equal in performance.

i found this image depicting which slots are which speed on pci-x g5's

[supernova777]

the sonnet tempo-x is the ultimate 64bit card, with 4 internal connections + 4 external connections
http://www.sonnettech.com/publicfiles/pdfs/pdf_datasheets/tempo-x_esata44_datasheet.pdf
mac + Windows compatible too!

^^ oops this is OSX only i think.. my bad

so.. seritek1s2 = sonnet tempo YES EQUAL
seritek 1v4 etc  != tempo-x, E4P NOT EQUAL

so yea the only card for 64bit 33mhz operation in g4's are the firmtek cards... cant find any other ones anywhere that claim mac os 9 compatibility
i find that kind of annoying that the only one that works can only be bought for 130$ from owc.. ugh

[MacTron]

This question is for Mactron: Is this all on Macos9?

Of course. I'm not a troll.  What's the point of doing it on Windows 8 or Mac os X? for me it is zero.

If so what RAID software system are you using?
Thanks

SoftRaid 2.2.2

are u booting from the raid0 too?

The two SSDs have a Raid 1 partition to boot and a second partition in Raid 0 that can't be used to boot AFAIK.

I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.

This is true.
Even using a standard IDE motherboard connector, but ATA 100 on the MDD (that goes into different PCI BUS).
The real impact on this, depend on how many audio tracks are traveling along the PCI BUS.

It doesn't matter if some cards can work on a 33/66/133 Mhz PCI bus. Installed on a Mac G4 it ALWAYS run at 33 Mhz (unless overclocked PCI bus)
The only difference is if work at 32 or 64 bits.
If works at 32 bits (short connector) the max bus transfer rate is 133 MB/s
If works at 64 bits (long connector) the max bus transfer rate is 266 MB/s

I just test that the last was true.
No more

The Sil3112 cards are all 32 bits and need a 2 or 4 Mbits EPROM, so a EPROM change and reflash is usually needed, unless you are lucky enought to find one with this big EPROM
The "little" EPROM reflash doesn't supports Mac Os 9. AFAIK

[Protools5LEGuy]

I was afraid after hearing DieHard and others that ANY pci-to-ide or pci-to-sata interface "eats"  too many bandwith that could lead to audio drops.

This is true.
Even using a standard IDE motherboard connector, but ATA 100 on the MDD (that goes into different PCI BUS).
The real impact on this, depend on how many audio tracks are traveling along the PCI BUS.

It doesn't matter if some cards can work on a 33/66/133 Mhz PCI bus. Installed on a Mac G4 it ALWAYS run at 33 Mhz (unless overclocked PCI bus)
The only difference is if work at 32 or 64 bits.

There is a exception. Non-agp PowerMacs where " The ATI Rage 128 graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM occupies a 66 MHz PCI slot " http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html
Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits

[supernova777]

There is a exception. Non-agp PowerMacs where " The ATI Rage 128 graphics card with 16 MB of SDRAM occupies a 66 MHz PCI slot " http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html
Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits

wow .. good point!!!!!! 
holy shit hes right..
this means if any 32bit card pci sata was inserted into this 66mhz pci slot on pci only mac .. then it could reach speeds the same speeds as the 64bit card mactron has in pci-64 slot at 33mhz
its the same for all pci based g4 (and also powermac g3) all feature 1x 32bit 66mhz slot

pci macs with 66mhz pci slot (originally intended for video)
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_300_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_350_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_400_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_450_bl.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_400.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/specs/powermac_g4_350.html

question is...would this cripple video performance too much?...
but we are into audio;) so its ok.. but maybe the video refresh + graphics would be realy bad?

so its a revelation: it may be possible to achieve 266mb/s with a 32bit PCI sata card if the card is insert
into the 66mhz "VIDEO PCI slot" of a pci non-agp g3 or g4.. at the cost of reduced video performance

Standard   Bit   Clock   Transfer rates
(bi-directional)
PCI 2.3   32 Bit   33 MHz   133 MB/sec
PCI 2.3   32 Bit   66 MHz   266 MB/sec <------ possible on pci based g3/g4 using video slot using 32bit pci sata card?
PCI 64   64 Bit   33 MHz   266 MB/sec
PCI 64   64 Bit   66 MHz   533 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   66 MHz   533 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   100 MHz   800 MB/sec
PCI-X 1.0   64 Bit   133 MHz   1066 MB/sec
PCI-X 2.0 (DDR)   64 Bit   133 MHz   2132 MB/sec
PCI-X 2.0 (QDR)   64 Bit   133 MHz   4264 MB/sec
PCI-Express   1 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   512 MB/sec
PCI-Express   2 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   1 GB/sec
PCI-Express   4 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   2 GB/sec
PCI-Express   8 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   4 GB/sec
PCI-Express   16 Lines 8 Bit   2.5 GHz   8 GB/sec
source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xeon-cpus-intel-p4-extreme-platform,808-4.html

so now it is up to ProTools5LeGuy .. u must get a pci 32bit sata and test this theory on your g3!
if mactron could make available the softraid software?

Maybe a headless system can use it at 66 MHz instead of 33MHz 64 bits

headless? cant u just swap slots? put the video card in a 33mhz slot? & the sil3112 in the 66mhz slot... or would this not work?

[supernova777]

also wanted to point out a bit of text on the press release from 2004 of these pci-x sata cards

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1v4/pr/launch/

FirmTek Announces Solutions for Internal and External Personal RAID Storage
Fast Enough for Uncompressed HD Video

The SeriTek/1V4 and SeriTek/1VE4 PCI-X adapters each allow up to four Serial ATA drives
to be striped for unprecedented performance

San Francisco, California (January 11, 2004) -- FirmTek, LLC, the world's leading developer of ATA host adapter solutions for Apple's Macintosh, announced today at Macworld Expo their latest Serial ATA host adapters. The SeriTek/1V4 and SeriTek/1VE4 adapters utilize PCI-X interface technology which offer superior performance in Power Mac G5 computers while retaining compatibility in standard PCI slots. Each delivers Serial ATA's 1.5Gbits/sec performance to as many as four drives simultaneously, allowing for storage speeds among the fastest in desktop computing. When today's fastest Serial ATA drives are connected to these high-performance cards, and then striped with OS X's disk utility software, the resulting array can handle live, uncompressed HD video.

SeriTek/1VE4:
The SeriTek/1VE4 adapter offers four external Serial ATA ports that are independently controlled, fully shielded and completely hot-swappable. This design allows for the quick connection of drives to virtually any PCI-based Macintosh for any number of applications, and the hot-swap feature means that multiple users or applications can share the same machine without rebooting between projects. Even a fully operational RAID volume can be unmounted, disconnected, and replaced with another volume without powering the Macintosh down, a FirmTek exclusive feature. This can be especially useful in applications where large video files are being created.

SeriTek/1V4:
This solution employs the same FirmTek quality as the 1VE4, but utilizes internal connections for RAID arrays contained entirely inside the Macintosh. It has the same performance without employing hot-swap capability.

With legacy G4 platforms, including most of the "Sawtooth" varieties of Power Macintosh, both of the new SeriTek solutions are limited by bus speed more than the processor speed, which results in impressive performance. While the original Sawtooth machines will often outperform 130MB/sec throughput, the later Digital Audio, Quicksilver and MDD systems deliver RAID performance nearly equivalent to the latest G5 towers. Given these older systems' greater internal storage capacities, this will be important for many video professionals.

"2004 saw several firsts from FirmTek with external Serial ATA and hot-swap capabilities. Now we're kicking off 2005 with a bang with these latest solutions," said Chi Kim Stanford, Vice President of Business Development for FirmTek. "While many of the world's best-selling ATA solutions for the Mac use FirmTek designs, we are proud that the SeriTek/1VE4 and 1V4 are making their debut with a FirmTek label. The Macintosh has been widely acclaimed as a professional video development tool, and with this high-speed storage solution the promise is now complete."

The SeriTek/1VE4 and SeriTek/1V4 offer the key benefits of speed and capacity with remarkable flexibility and ease of service. With drives now surpassing 500GB each, there are few applications with requirements too extreme for the new SeriTek models. When formatted and controlled by Mac OS X's RAID software, the highest performance drives support the storage of uncompressed high-definition streaming video, which was not easily accomplished on desktop systems before the arrival of Serial ATA. The easy and accessible cabling of Serial ATA drives also makes installing and servicing them a snap when compared with their predecessors.

SeriTek/1VE4 and SeriTek/1V4 Key Features and Benefits

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Latest 133MHz PCI-X interface technology
Compatible with all PCI-based Power Macintosh computers
Hot-swaps both stand-alone drives and drives within a RAID volume (1VE4 only)
Self-contained booting functionality supports direct booting from attached drives
Four independently controlled Serial ATA ports
Boosts overall system performance with data transfer rates of up to 150MBytes/sec or 1.5Gbits/sec per port
"Plug and Play" drivers built-in for Macintosh
Supports Mac OS 8, OS 9, and OS X version 10.1.5 or later
Provides performance and protection: Supports native OS X RAID 0/1; OS 9 RAID (with third party software)
User-upgradeable firmware for easy updates
Large LBA support for drives larger than 137GB
Includes two "works with Macintosh" thin and flexible SATA cables to allow easy, optimal placement of devices (1V4 only)
Ideal for multimedia-intensive applications: audio/video capture and editing, graphics manipulation and high-end digital publishing
Delivers top performance for all Power Macintosh "Sawtooth" G4, and all G5, computers

[supernova777]

I think ONBOARD ata-66 with a "classic" ata 3.5" 7200 rpm with 8 mb cache can give sustained 24 tracks and keep a free pci...

I could be wrong. 

I don´t force PT in OS9 to work more than 8/17 tracks (Audio Click).
Be there demo from protools LE runs even on a 5400 rpm drive.

remember my chart
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=578.0

the PCI g3/g4 based macs have the worst IDE disk speed of all they dont even have ATA-66 they have ATA-33!!

so it would be a real "flip the script" if it turns out that these non-agp macs can use 32bit SIL3112 cards to a faster effect
via this video 66mhz pci slot!!! as they would have the MOST to gain from this.. going from ata-33 to SATA150 full bandwidth of 266mb/s with two drives in raid0..
(that is if its even possible to boot OS9 from a softraid raid0.. but wait..  i think mactron said that this is only possible from a softraid RAID1 volume?
i really wish i had a pci mac to test this out!! i may have to find one now just to make sure LOL
this would be news for.. who was the one who came in the forums with this powered up G3 1ghz powerlogix zif??
so every b&w g3 features this 66mhz slot...
i would like to see this old ancient computer
with a cpu upgrade
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Cube-PowerMac-G4-Sonnet-Encore-1-4-ghz-CPU-Upgrade-/151259534800?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2337c555d0
and this sil3112 in the 66mhz slot!