Why not more than 4 SATA ?

Hi,

One of the advantages of SATA was that it reduces the circuitry of the matherboard ( less wires). That means that if they want they can put more than 4 SATA ports on the motherboards - 6, even 8, I guess.

Why haven't they done that?

A couple of reasons, I think. First, on the boards you can buy today S-ATA is little more than a gimmick. The S-ATA ports are actually just physical adapters that sit on top of ATA100/133 or IDE ports. Until boards come out with S-ATA controllers intergrated into the northbridge you won't be able to fully use the speed, hotswapping, or high number of devises.

The other reason is there just aren't enough S-ATA drives on the market to justify more than two. The first boards with S-ATA adapters came out last fall. It took six months for the first drives to reach retail, and even now there are only a few in the retail channel. And no one is even talking about S-ATA optical drives yet.




BHD