cyclone3d wrote on 2021-09-15, 04:24:
I've had nothing but problems with the SIL controllers. Anything from the drives not being detected at all to data getting corrupted really quickly. This is with only a single drive connected.
I have a bunch of them and none of the models seem at all reliable to me. So much so that I have not even been able to bring myself to try selling them.
These SIL controllers had these same exact type of issues when they were built onto motherboards.
Well, I am not exactly recommending them, having read multiple horror stories about them, hence my list of caveats, but I have somehow had great luck with two of them so far on 3 different motherboards (two 440BX ones and one 815EP). I also have a third one with a bad EEPROM, but it also works fine, in Windows, as long as you don't expect to boot from it or use it under DOS, AFAICR . Being a glutton for punishment, I actually bought a couple of dirt cheap ones a while back for 12 $CAN each . Interestingly, that auction (same Item ID on ebay) is still going on, but the cards are now 70 $CAN each!!!! The cheapest SIL3114 cards from China now are about 20 $CAN (no idea how good or bad they are either).
As for Promise cards, they start at almost 100 $CAN with shipping in my neck of the woods (for an IDE Ultra133, SATA is more expensive). I would love to get my hands on a non Promise SATA 150 variant with Windows 98 SE, but I am not going pay those prices for one .
EDIT : Also, the VIA 596 south bridge could have issues with any of these options . Also, the Ultra133 has issues even on some 440BX boards (my PB-F, among others).