User Guide • PC3-ALLEGRO • CompactPCI
®
PlusIO CPU Board • Intel® i7-3xxx Processor
Serial ATA Interface (SATA)
The PC3-ALLEGRO provides a total of eight serial ATA (SATA) ports, derived from two independent
SATA controllers. Two of these ports support data transfer rates of 6Gbps (600MB/s) while all ports
are capable to work with 3Gbps (300MB/s) or 1.5Gbps (150MB/s).
The SATA controller that is located within the QM77 Platform Controller Hub hold two 6Gbps and
two 3Gbps ports which are fed to the high speed expansion connector J-HSE. This connector allows
the installation of low profile expansion boards like C41-CFAST or C42-SATA to attach the popular
CFast cards or Micro SATA SSDs (1.8-inch) respectively. Another mezzanine is the C47-MSATA, a
carrier for two MSATA SSD modules, that is connected via J-HSE to the 6Gbps ports for fast data
storage.
Four SATA interfaces are provided by a Marvell 88SE9230 Controller available on the Backplane
connector J2. Hardware RAID configuration level 0/1/10 is supported. Please be aware that
CompactPCI PlusIO Specefication does not support SATA 6G. Therefore J2 SATA channels are
configured as SATA 3G.
A LED named HD located in the front panel, signals disk activity status of any of the SATA devices.
Additionally a variety of side cards is available, suitable for mounting on the PC3-ALLEGRO in a 4HP
(20.32mm) distance (resulting in 8HP front panel width for the assembly). Some of these side boards
can accommodate a SATA drive, e.g. a 2.5-inch SSD.
Available for download from Intel's web site are drivers for popular operating systems, e.g. Windows®
XP, Windows® Vista, Windows® 7 and Linux.
To manage the RAID configuration of the 88SE9230 a Windows® application is provided by Marvell
that can be downloaded from EKF’s website.
© EKF -24- ekf.com
