Review on 🚀 Enhance Data Transfer with Ableconn PEX-SA134 4-Port eSATA III 6Gbps PCI Express Four Lanes Host Adapter Card - AHCI Port-Multiplier PCIe 2.0 x4 Controller Card by Bradley Wacks

A little background on my setup: I have a VMWare ESXi machine at home and I installed Plex in a virtual machine (Windows Server 2012) to stream content to different TVs and phones. I can make digital copies of movies and music and never have to worry about kids scratching discs or wearing out my PS4's blue-ray optics ever again. I also copy all my family photos and videos to this virtual machine, which allows me to stream that content as well, and I don't have to worry about losing my irreplaceable memories if the phone runs out of power. The missing part, however, is that I don't want this (now over 2TB) collection of family memories to be lost if the hard drive fails. I figured the temporary solution was to mirror the data between two hard drives (so I could lose a drive and keep my data) and then periodically eject one of those drives and replace with another to store in a safe ( so I can save my data in case someone steals my server or the house burns down). I tried the Windows RAID1 software for a while and found it to be clunky, slow and draining my CPU of processing power (which I'd rather have free for video transcoding). So the final answer was to get a card that could handle hardware RAID. Hardware RAID contains a separate processor that does nothing but manage the reading and writing of data to/from your drives. Many SATA cards and motherboards (including the one on my server) claim to offer RAID, but there's no CPU, so your CPU is stuck with the extra work of managing your data. If you are looking for a good hardware RAID card, you need to pay around $200. Then I found this (dedicated ARM processor, 4 physical ports, just over half the bill) and it seemed too good to be true. And maybe more. But it is very beneficial. This card is not supported by ESXi, but it works (at least 5.5 and 6.0 in my experience) if you get this driver: https://www.v-front. en/2013/11/how-to-make-your-unsupported-sata-ahci.html. I have two RAID1 arrays: an 8TB pair and a 3TB pair; all Seagate hard drives. The third 8TB drive will be replaced and the replaced one locked in a locker. There is no message as to when to press the keys to enter the card's BIOS, so I had to look up the key in the manual. Combination and I've found that if you press ctrl+m in one second intervals on first boot it runs into the card bios and if you see any bios messages from the motherboard you need to reboot because you're missing your window to have. The screen goes from black to a slightly bluish black, presumably a window but it's easier to just press the buttons until you get there. If you don't have any hard drives attached to the card, you won't be able to access the BIOS either. It took me some time to get started because I wanted to see the BIOS to make sure it's working before plugging in the drive and it's just an exercise in futility. Bells and whistles interface: you create an array and it gives you the raid status. Since this card is not supported by ESXi, this is the ONLY INTERFACE I have found so far. So if you want to view the SMART status of your drives or receive email notifications of a possible drive failure, you probably need a more expensive ESXi-enabled card. The controller card is a host device used locally by ESXi, so you cannot view the card in a Windows VM unless you tell ESXi to walk through it, and when you do that you can use the array(s)( s) do not use. as storage(s) ) data in ESXi. . Over time I'll tinker with the Linux tools that come with the card; hopefully there is a mechanic who can work from an ESXi host and send alerts (I'll update this review if/when I know more). The last problem I had with this card and why it might still be too good. - To be true: Sometimes, and apparently only when the records are heavily written, everything just hangs up. For example, I can move files from one virtual disk to another while streaming video from Plex while moving files over network (CIFS) to the VM and the VM just freezes. RDP no longer allows incoming connections and when entering the console, the block time is displayed on the login screen. You can't sign in through the console. When I try to restart the VM, the entire host becomes unresponsive, leading me to believe it's definitely a driver issue, although interestingly I can interact with the host normally via vSphere and the SSH terminal login. But once that happens I have to shut down or restart the host using the physical buttons (which you normally NEVER want to do). This may not happen for a few days, but moving large amounts of data (including disk-intensive I/O tasks like zipping/unzipping folders and defragmenting) pretty reliably locks up the entire host. I haven't been able to find any entries in Windows or ESXi that detail what happened here. Again, I'll update this when I can find out more. So bottom line: A SATA controller card at this price seems insanely cheap. And it can be used with VMWare ESXi with a third party driver set. It cannot be a 5 star product as it is impossible to get the status of your RAID without rebooting and looking at the BIOS screen and this feedback is very important to have a RAID controller. And ultimately this may be totally unacceptable for use on an ESXi host as it may result in having to force shut down the entire host, but the jury is out until I can prove the card is at fault. I will update this review when I have more information. I hope my experience helps others who want to do something similar and maybe it gives you some ideas for your own setup.