PATA/SATA RAID limitations

[Fustian]

Simple question I guess...

Can a PATA/SATA RAID have more than two drives in each configuration under normal circumstances? Can you have a four disk SATA RAID with with the array spanning two channels?

Thanks!

Fustian

[myzhi]

SATA = 1 driver per channel. Thus, for 4 drive raid, you will need 4 channels.

[XWRed1]

You can make raid arrays with as many drives as you want regardless of their interface type.

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by XWRed1
You can make raid arrays with as many drives as you want regardless of their interface type.

As long as you have hardware (cxards) that can do it.

[Fustian]

Thanks guys.

Are there any mobos out there that don't hook the SATA/PATA up through the PCI? You could easily saturate the PCI (133 Mb/sec?)with 3 or more drives in a RAID 0.

[L337 M33P]

I think that the integrated SATA Adapter in the Intel ICH5 (or something) southbridge can communicate directly to the southbridge, so the limitation is the NB-SB bandwidth.

This only has 2 SATA channels though, so unless you have 2 raptors or 2x250GB drives in RAID0 you won't saturate the PCI bus anyway.

[Lancelot]

ICH5 has a direct link to the MCH (Northbridge) and ICH5R even has a separate direct link for GigaBit LAN to the MCH so PCI isn't a limiting factor at all anymore... PCI will be a limiting factor when you have to put any RAID card in a PCI slot!!!