which (non-RAID) SATA controller works great?

[lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de>]

Hi,

I'm trying to find out which SATA controller card would work great for
Debian testing with (currently) kernel 2.6.30. Availability (want to
buy in local store) and price (max $100) are also an issue. The card
must be supported with drivers included in the standard kernel, have
at least 4 ports, should be a PCI-e card and support all features
(like NCQ).

Promise cards are hard to get and PCI-x. Many cards have only 2 ports
and eventually unknow chips. Adaptec cards seem to be expensive and
don't have drivers other than for Redhat and Suse. Cheap $20 cards are
probably crap and won't work. 3ware is too expensive.

So what works, what are you using?


I hate SATA --- it could be nice if it would just work, though ...