1) I believe the SI3114 card needs PCI 2.2, so probably won't work. I've run a Promise SATA150-TX2Plus in a P100 system with i430TX, which supports PCI 2.1.
2) SATA is backwards-compatible, so yes.
3) I've not even been able to get an 8GB SSD working under 6.22. Fdisk correctly recognizes its size, but can do max 2GB partitions. So far so good, but the boot record doesn't seem to get written correctly so the system can't boot from it.
4) If you have the boot options to boot from different SATA drives, then yes. However I've not seen that option... however you don't need to do multiboot on different drives, you can have multiple OSs in different partitions on the same disk.

Tbh though, in a system this old/slow I'd not bother with a PCI SATA card, instead I'd just go with PATA-SATA adapters. Yes, 150MBps SATA (limited by PCI bandwidth of about 90MBps) is faster than 33MBps PATA, but with a CPU like this, you won't notice the difference. The advantage is much faster boot times (SATA BIOS initialization takes a while), better integration in boot options (if your BIOS lets you choose between C: and D:, you can use two SSDs as you want) and in the case of Win9x and NT less hassle with drivers (i.e. 'it just works'). Save the SATA150 TX4 for a P3-class system.

1. Promise S150 (The Sata II 150 controllers do not have Windows 9x drivers)
2. Yes
3. You may need to partition it with a newer computer. You can make multiple partitions so you can have a bunch of different drive letters if you want.
4. The motherboard BIOS will see the SATA card as a SCSI card. It depends on if the SATA card has a boot menu that will let you select which drive to boot from OR you can always set up a boot manager.

dionb wrote:

1) I believe the SI3114 card needs PCI 2.2, so probably won't work. I've run a Promise SATA150-TX2Plus in a P100 system with i43 […]
Show full quote

1) I believe the SI3114 card needs PCI 2.2, so probably won't work. I've run a Promise SATA150-TX2Plus in a P100 system with i430TX, which supports PCI 2.1.
2) SATA is backwards-compatible, so yes.
3) I've not even been able to get an 8GB SSD working under 6.22. Fdisk correctly recognizes its size, but can do max 2GB partitions. So far so good, but the boot record doesn't seem to get written correctly so the system can't boot from it.
4) If you have the boot options to boot from different SATA drives, then yes. However I've not seen that option... however you don't need to do multiboot on different drives, you can have multiple OSs in different partitions on the same disk.

Tbh though, in a system this old/slow I'd not bother with a PCI SATA card, instead I'd just go with PATA-SATA adapters. Yes, 150MBps SATA (limited by PCI bandwidth of about 90MBps) is faster than 33MBps PATA, but with a CPU like this, you won't notice the difference. The advantage is much faster boot times (SATA BIOS initialization takes a while), better integration in boot options (if your BIOS lets you choose between C: and D:, you can use two SSDs as you want) and in the case of Win9x and NT less hassle with drivers (i.e. 'it just works'). Save the SATA150 TX4 for a P3-class system.

Great points! Thanks bro!!

I just wanna make sure to squeeze every possible byte/second out of the whatever channel I use (whether UDMA 66 and above or SATA 150). So, my concern was just about the ability of the "whatever solid memory" I'll use to squeeze at least 60-70 MB/sec as max. speed, and I thought that SATA SSDs might be faster than IDE solutions, such as CF cards and SD Cards.

However!!! I guess if I get a very very fast type of SD or CF card (like UDMA 7 for CF or those SanDisk 90MB/sec SD Cards) that should do the trick, am I correct?

Thanks again!

cyclone3d wrote:

1. Promise S150 (The Sata II 150 controllers do not have Windows 9x drivers) 2. Yes 3. You may need to partition it with a newer […]
Show full quote

1. Promise S150 (The Sata II 150 controllers do not have Windows 9x drivers)
2. Yes
3. You may need to partition it with a newer computer. You can make multiple partitions so you can have a bunch of different drive letters if you want.
4. The motherboard BIOS will see the SATA card as a SCSI card. It depends on if the SATA card has a boot menu that will let you select which drive to boot from OR you can always set up a boot manager.

Great, thanks bro!

So, in conclusion, if I take say a big SSD, and partition it making lots of 8 GB partitions, shall I be able to set up a multi-boot using a boot manager?

Thanks!

Tbh I've never benched SATA SSD vs SD or CF. I strongly suspect the latter will be quite a bit more expensive per MB though.

Squeezing speed is only relevant if the bit you're squeezing is a bottleneck. The difference between HDD and SSD is huge, but that's mainly due to the much lower latencies of SSD, not the throughput. At 100MHz, I suspect your CPU will bottleneck long before you hit the limits of 33MBps ATA-33...

dionb wrote:

Tbh I've never benched SATA SSD vs SD or CF. I strongly suspect the latter will be quite a bit more expensive per MB though.

Squeezing speed is only relevant if the bit you're squeezing is a bottleneck. The difference between HDD and SSD is huge, but that's mainly due to the much lower latencies of SSD, not the throughput. At 100MHz, I suspect your CPU will bottleneck long before you hit the limits of 33MBps ATA-33...

I concur, but, even so, there's an emotional component, which includes seeing the benchmarks skyrocket and things like that... things that in the old days were only possible in the most Sci-Fi nerdy dreams!

cyclone3d wrote on 2018-09-18, 15:59:

1. Promise S150 (The Sata II 150 controllers do not have Windows 9x drivers) 2. Yes 3. You may need to partition it with a newer […]
Show full quote

1. Promise S150 (The Sata II 150 controllers do not have Windows 9x drivers)
2. Yes
3. You may need to partition it with a newer computer. You can make multiple partitions so you can have a bunch of different drive letters if you want.
4. The motherboard BIOS will see the SATA card as a SCSI card. It depends on if the SATA card has a boot menu that will let you select which drive to boot from OR you can always set up a boot manager.

The Promise user guide said "The SATA150 TX Series Controller card fits into any available 32-bit PCI slot (must be PCI 2.2 or 2.3 compliant)."
https://www.promise.com/DownloadFile.aspx?Dow … oadFileUID=3464

Does it mean the SATA150 is backward compatible with PCI 2.1? I have an Asus P2B which only supports PCI 2.1, that's why I ask.

Speaking from experience:
I used a Promise SATA150 TX2plus on a SS7 build about 6 years ago. I remember it being a little finicky, but ultimately working fine with a Windows 2k boot partition and a FAT32 partition for Windows 98 games (98 installed on a separate drive). Win 9x/2k drivers are available. It's connected to a single 120GB SSD and I probably used GPartEd to partition it.
On a more recent Tualatin build, I just used a PATA to SATA adapter. Saved a PCI slot and works seamlessly. A 32GB Intel SLC SSD attached to it benchmarked significantly faster than the 80GB Western Digital hard drive in the same system.

ultimate386 wrote on 2020-09-19, 18:17:

Speaking from experience:
I used a Promise SATA150 TX2plus on a SS7 build about 6 years ago. I remember it being a little finicky, but ultimately working fine with a Windows 2k boot partition and a FAT32 partition for Windows 98 games (98 installed on a separate drive). Win 9x/2k drivers are available. It's connected to a single 120GB SSD and I probably used GPartEd to partition it.
On a more recent Tualatin build, I just used a PATA to SATA adapter. Saved a PCI slot and works seamlessly. A 32GB Intel SLC SSD attached to it benchmarked significantly faster than the 80GB Western Digital hard drive in the same system.

Thanks. Using PATA to SATA is a good idea. I assume any generic adapter will work? like this:
https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Female-Adapter … 00583646&sr=8-3

sangokushi wrote on 2020-09-20, 06:38:

ultimate386 wrote on 2020-09-19, 18:17:

Speaking from experience:
I used a Promise SATA150 TX2plus on a SS7 build about 6 years ago. I remember it being a little finicky, but ultimately working fine with a Windows 2k boot partition and a FAT32 partition for Windows 98 games (98 installed on a separate drive). Win 9x/2k drivers are available. It's connected to a single 120GB SSD and I probably used GPartEd to partition it.
On a more recent Tualatin build, I just used a PATA to SATA adapter. Saved a PCI slot and works seamlessly. A 32GB Intel SLC SSD attached to it benchmarked significantly faster than the 80GB Western Digital hard drive in the same system.

Thanks. Using PATA to SATA is a good idea. I assume any generic adapter will work? like this:
https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Female-Adapter … 00583646&sr=8-3

These converters are not all equivalent . The good ones are cheap enough that I would not bother trying to save a buck or two by getting one with a no-name chip .
This is actually the converter I would recommend . It uses a Jmicron chip and it handles DMA . I have tested it up to Ultra66 speeds . See here : Re: Small capacity SSD PATA/SATA benchmarks