What to do when you run out of SATA ports?

[BF_TEXMASTER]

I have 6 internal SATA ports but they are all in use with hard drives. Problem is my dvd burner is also SATA as are most new ones so is there a card or something you can use that will still enable the drive to be bootable to load OSs from?

 

[kayson]

You can buy a SATA controller that uses a pci (or pci-e) slot. Just search on Newegg. They're pretty cheap and you can get as many ports as you need. As far as booting, you can always move one of the hard drives to the pci card and stick the optical drive on straight on the motherboard. I'm not sure if controller cards support booting, but you could just check the specs.

 

[Wathnix]

Yes, there are add on cards for adding more SATA ports to your computer. They start at around $30 and go on up. You can also get a RAID card and just use it for running drives. I've included 2 links, one is for PCI cards and the other is for PCI-e cards. If your motherboard has any PCI-e 1x slots then that is the way to go because the PCI-e will run faster and smoother than the older PCI slots.

As for booting off of a CD-ROM/DVD drive attached to SATA card, that can be done but can be more trouble than it's worth. I would recommend that you switch some of your hard drives to the SATA card then plug DVD burner in to the motherboard.

I've also got a used 6 port (4 internal, 2 external) SATA card (PCI) I can sell you if you are interested. Send me a PM

Here are the links for the PCI and PCI-e cards. I am using newegg.com as an example, because I do a lot of buisiness with them, but any large online PC hardware will have these cards. You can google search 'SATA card' or 'SATA RAID card' and you will find many retailers

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...010073 1187129175&name=PCI to SATA / IDE Card


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0073 1187117620&name=PCI Express to SATA Card

 

[BF_TEXMASTER]

Yes, there are add on cards for adding more SATA ports to your computer. They start at around $30 and go on up. You can also get a RAID card and just use it for running drives. I've included 2 links, one is for PCI cards and the other is for PCI-e cards. If your motherboard has any PCI-e 1x slots then that is the way to go because the PCI-e will run faster and smoother than the older PCI slots.

As for booting off of a CD-ROM/DVD drive attached to SATA card, that can be done but can be more trouble than it's worth. I would recommend that you switch some of your hard drives to the SATA card then plug DVD burner in to the motherboard.

I've also got a used 6 port (4 internal, 2 external) SATA card (PCI) I can sell you if you are interested. Send me a PM

Here are the links for the PCI and PCI-e cards. I am using newegg.com as an example, because I do a lot of buisiness with them, but any large online PC hardware will have these cards. You can google search 'SATA card' or 'SATA RAID card' and you will find many retailers

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...010073 1187129175&name=PCI to SATA / IDE Card


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0073 1187117620&name=PCI Express to SATA Card

I've heard of bottleneck issues with pci raid cards. Is this true or just bs?

Also, if I move a RAID to a pci card, will I loose that raid and be forced to format?

 

[jgv115]

Bottleneck with PCI RAID cards? The complete opposite!

 

[joshhua5]

i don't know go from PCI-E

 

[Wathnix]

the old style PCI port shares a 33mhz bus with all the other PCI slots, so yes, it can bottleneck, particularly if you have other things plugged in to the PCI slots, which is why I recommend that you use PCI-e 1x or PCI-e 4x slots if you have any on your motherboard. Only use the old style PCI slots if you have no other choice.

As for switching RAID arrays over to a SATA card from the motherboard, I think you can, though I am not certain. You can ask in the "Storage" forum for a better answer than what I can give you. You could also ask the manufacturers of the SATA cards if you can boot from a DVD drive attached to their card. They should be able to help you if it will make a sale for them.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

Bottleneck with PCI RAID cards? The complete opposite!

PCI yes, PCIe no. (your getting them confused)

PCI is limited to 133mb on the PCI bus, then you have overhead and then anything else on PCI bus shares that bandwidth


Switching raid between cards usually wont work. backup your data before you try any switching.

 

[Nebulous]

PCI yes, PCIe no. (your getting them confused)

PCI is limited to 133mb on the PCI bus, then you have overhead and then anything else on PCI bus shares that bandwidth


Switching raid between cards usually wont work. backup your data before you try any switching.

I concur. Switching raid between 2 different cards will not work unless they both have the same chipset (which is a rarity).

 

[Wathnix]

Do you intend to have Windows installed on the RAID array?

 

[trents]

I only have found one of the following (from the address: http://www.geraldmo.com/Documents/gerald2.pdf):


SECTION 210.340: DISCHARGING AIR GUN, ETC.


- - - Updated - - -

I meant about this: "** Under TITLE II, SECTION 210.340 it is legal to overclock **"

What?

 

[Culbrelai]

I've always wondered about these (and am at my mobos SATA limit as well)

Could you stack these? Like have 6 or 8 of them in a single system for like 30 SATA slots?