i only got this far, in checking that.
its connected to the jmicro (hard drive controller) , which can do raid, that would mean you could have 2 raid systems.
the jmicro controller goes through the intel thing to get there, so i didnt see much advantage in it.
trying to alter an internal design cable to work on the port was a waste of time, so you really need a correct cable, hacking up a internal with a dremmel is a bad idea.
finding a external to internal SATA connector was hard, there was one e-bay seller who sold them without some external case, external cases are about 50$ and a bad way to get a cable $$$
.
my original idea was to run my raid off the jmicro controller, which meant i would need to use the ONE internal and ONE external sata connector :-( as if that wasnt stupid enough , the jmicro had to go through the intels controller to get to the rest of the computer.
SO
i gave up and went with intel raid.
if you needed 2 raid controllers seperate, for some kind of security, or have an external raid box thing, it might be worth dealing with.
ohh, the other question.
sure you could run a drive on that (raid or not), and access it through the jmicro as raid or regular ide. MYSELF i cant think of any reason to want to do that. let the jmicro controller deal with the PATA side , because that is probably why it was tossed in there, that way your cd dvd junk will have its own channel.
of course i did NOT get that far, so that is all i know.
the other thing is the Jmicro drivers put a filter on the intel side when i was doing some unconventional (mabey) installing. and it made a bloody mess. so if you do put the full set of jmicro drivers on your operating system, have a clone type backup before doing so , that filter thing can REALLY mess things up.
