You can use a Promise IDE ATA66 or ATA133 controller card with a IDE2 SATA adapter ..it'll be far more compatible with the older systems than trying to shoehorn a sata card in there. The IDe controller should work just fine with DOS, Win 3.11 and 95/98 including NT4.

No point in worrying about transfer speeds since you will be bottlenecked by the bus speed and likely wont see the full speed these cards are "capable" of hitting.

Something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/335601281157? or this https://www.ebay.com/itm/335878571900? would work fine throw an adapter on the SSD and you have a working setup.

**Im not affiliated with the listed sellers, they are for information purposes only**

There's also BlueSCSI as a potential option.

I haven't used this myself, but I've seen it in many retro Macintosh restoration videos on YouTube. I'm guessing it can work on PCs as well.

I used a cheap Silicon Image 0680 based PCI IDE controller on a Dell PowerEdge 2100 Pentium Pro board without IDE. With a IDE to SATA adapter with a SATA drive on one port and a CDROM on the other.

SATA150 TX2plus is what you want, I wouldn't trust any of that silicon image crap

maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-02, 13:07:

SATA150 TX2plus is what you want, I wouldn't trust any of that silicon image crap

I use one of these with a Gateway PII-300 on a 440BX motherboard with a Kingston 128GB SSD and it works quite nicely.

Mine was Matrox branded, but it's the same thing--

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/prom … k-s150-tx2-plus

Appreciate the tips. I'd prefer not going from PCI <-> IDE <-> SATA, because I don't like the clutter and the added complexity. But the cost of a PCI <-> IDE adapter plus the cost of a good SATA <-> IDE adapter (Marvell ones like from StarTech are good) is around $40 compared to $150 for the S150 TX2. Since I don't care about IDE, does anyone know if the S150 TX4 is just as compatible as TX2?

I use one of these with a Gateway PII-300 on a 440BX

But 440BX is newer than the 450GX on the PL5000. The SIL3114 that doesn't work with 450GX does on my 440BX motherboard.

Wow, TX2 is really popular and compatible. This guy says it works on a 486 chipset Re: Is Intel SE440BX2 Motherboard PCI 2.2 compliant?. A 486 probably has a PCI 2.0 controller just like the 450GX.

Here's the benchmark that I get--

https://crystalmarkdb.com/retro/scores/626

OK, ordered a S150 TX2 for $45 from ServerWorlds. Also found the answer to my question if I can use a single disk without creating an array:

Q: Can I take a drive used in a FastTrak S150 TX2plus array and access it directly with a different controller, such as the one […]
Show full quote

Q: Can I take a drive used in a FastTrak S150 TX2plus array and access it
directly with a different controller, such as the one integrated on the
motherboard?
A: Only Single-drive striped (RAID 0) and Mirrored (RAID 1) array
configurations allow the drive(s) to be accessed individually on another
controller. Multiple-drive striped (RAID 0) will not work

It says, "All disk array data is saved into the reserved sector on each array member".
I'm fine with creating an array, but I hope that extra metadata doesn't interfere with the gparted tool I use for resizing partitions. I once tried it on some disks that were in a RAID array, causing parted to interpret the partition table differently, until I zeroed out some sectors.

Here's the benchmark that I get

Nice 83.1 MB/s for sequential read. Seems you're maxing out the PCI bus. I don't know what fraction of the peak 133 MB/s is sustainable. I know for PCIe3, it's about 70%. That random speed isn't good. A Samsung 850 could do 100K, 4KiB random reads/writes/s, so that would be 410 MB/s. But that requires an exorbitant amount of parallel requests, to cause the queue depth to reach a high number.

I have the S150 TX2 installed, but can't create an array. "Error occurred when modifying array"

I've tried both an Intel X25-E and a 256 GB Samsung 860 Pro (in screenshot)

I hope it's not because of the Dell BIOS. Anyway I can create the array in another program?

Hmm, I can create arrays fine on an Intel 440BX chipset system and a socket 4 Pentium (VLSI VL82C591 chipset). The 2nd chipset predates PCI 2.1, just like the 450GX where it's not working, so that means it should work with PCI 2.0.

I wonder if it has something to do with the so called split PCI bus. It has 2 CPU bus to PCI bridges, each responding to different memory mapped IO address ranges and IO port ranges. It's described in the PDF. It says slots 5, 6, 7, 8 are on the primary PCI bus. I tried the card on both the primary and secondary, but no difference.

douglar wrote on 2025-04-02, 19:03:

I use one of these with a Gateway PII-300 on a 440BX motherboard with a Kingston 128GB SSD and it works quite nicely. […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-02, 13:07:

SATA150 TX2plus is what you want, I wouldn't trust any of that silicon image crap

I use one of these with a Gateway PII-300 on a 440BX motherboard with a Kingston 128GB SSD and it works quite nicely.

Mine was Matrox branded, but it's the same thing--

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/prom … k-s150-tx2-plus

You probably mean Maxtor as Matrox did VGA cards 😉

I would:
1. Make sure the card BIOS is the latest
2. Try making the array on a different computer and then transfer the card and drive back to that system. It should keep the config.

You may need to change a setting in BIOS to make the Promise card work properly. Maybe something to do with external drive controllers or something.

There is also the PAM ( Promise Array Management Utility ) that will allow local and remote management of all FastTrak arrays that exist anywhere on the network.

spacesaver wrote on 2025-04-14, 07:01:

I have the S150 TX2 installed, but can't create an array. "Error occurred when modifying array"

Santiy check:

Is this a regular S150 TX2Plus or a FastTrak S150 TX2Plus?

The instruction that you always need to create an array (even with single drive) only applies to the FastTrak, not to the regular non-FastTrak version. IMHO the FastTrak is a bit of a PITA...

1. Make sure the card BIOS is the latest

It's using 1.0.20.53, which is the latest from Dell. I know some people don't want that because it doesn't support the Windows 98 driver Dell OEM S150 TX2 BIOS, but I only care about NT 4 and DOS.

Try making the array on a different computer and then transfer the card and drive back to that system

Good idea. I actually already tried that, but no difference.
I tried disabling the motherboard's Symbios Logic SCSI controller (I heard PCI storage devices are treated as SCSI), but also no difference.

Is this a regular S150 TX2Plus or a FastTrak S150 TX2Plus?

I have the FastTrak. Wow, I didn't realize there's a RAID one and non-RAID. If I go to https://www.promise.com/support/downloadcenter, I see SATA150 TX2Plus and S150 TX2Plus. I don't think I've ever seen SATA150 TX2Plus for sale.

Earlier, I tried flashing the wrong non-RAID BIOS, but it says the device ID doesn't match. Also the file size is 16 KiB vs 64 for the Dell one. That explains both mysteries then.

Very glad you pointed it out. Anyone else know if the non-RAID one is more compatible than the RAID one?

The non-RAID is what I have, and recommend