The "Other" SATA ports...

[rainless]

This question has been plaguing me for almost twenty years... and since I never bothered to look it up, and it's recently caused me a lot of grief, I figured I'd finally ask:

What the hell are the "other" SATA ports for? What do they do? Why are they there? Why don't I just have six regular SATA ports instead of 4 of one kind and two of another?

I imagine it has something to do with "the bus"... but the reason why I ask is that recently it's become an issue.

Had a brand new, Samsung, SSD drive... 1TB. Working just fine. Using it for weeks. Suddenly the computer crashed and wouldn't start again. Took me a while to even realize it was the Samsung and that it was plugged into one of those "extra" SATA ports. Unplugged the drive and the computer started up like nothing was ever wrong.

I've had an older, mechanical drive for a while now. Always in danger of going out. Moved some port around... plugged IT into one of those ports... and after about two months BOOM! Drive no more.

So what are those ports for? Do they require some kind of special drivers? Are they just for optical drives? What's the deal?

 

[koleramilan]

This question has been plaguing me for almost twenty years... and since I never bothered to look it up, and it's recently caused me a lot of grief, I figured I'd finally ask:

What the hell are the "other" SATA ports for? What do they do? Why are they there? Why don't I just have six regular SATA ports instead of 4 of one kind and two of another?

I imagine it has something to do with "the bus"... but the reason why I ask is that recently it's become an issue.

Had a brand new, Samsung, SSD drive... 1TB. Working just fine. Using it for weeks. Suddenly the computer crashed and wouldn't start again. Took me a while to even realize it was the Samsung and that it was plugged into one of those "extra" SATA ports. Unplugged the drive and the computer started up like nothing was ever wrong.

I've had an older, mechanical drive for a while now. Always in danger of going out. Moved some port around... plugged IT into one of those ports... and after about two months BOOM! Drive no more.

So what are those ports for? Do they require some kind of special drivers? Are they just for optical drives? What's the deal?

This is kind of weird question. They are there so you would have option to expand your pc.

I think your problem has to do with motherboard rather than the drive.

I guess people are not going to populate them anyway but manufacturers give you that option because it's cheap and useful.

Послато са LM-G710 помоћу Тапатока

 

[EarthDog]

Elememtary, my dear rainless.

The SATA ports (its bandwidth) comes from the chipset. How many 'native' SATA ports depends on the chipset. Right now with intel and AMD (non hedt) that's up to 6. Other things share bandwidth with SATA lanes such as m.2 devices. Sometimes board partners will take two native ports away to give that bandwidth to the m.2 without lane sharing (for example, some boards if you use a second m.2 a SATA port or two will be disabled). I'm mobile replying so look up "z490 chipset diagram" to see how things are connected (varies a bit by board of course - some have chipset diagrams in their manuals).

As far as drivers, yes, 3rd party sata ports need drivers (if windows doesn't do it). Are they specifically for optical devices? No...generic.


EDIT: Not mobile...

 

[Railgun]

Elememtary, my dear rainless.

The SATA ports (its bandwidth) comes from the chipset.

Some, not all. Some come from the CPU, some from the chipset. All depends on the specific board's architecture. As for the Z390 chipset, sure to the above.

 

[EarthDog]

Some, not all. Some come from the CPU, some from the chipset. All depends on the specific board's architecture. As for the Z390 chipset, sure to the above.

I was speaking for the OP's signature/situation. Can you show where any SATA lanes are sourced from the CPU (intel)?

Amd is a bit different. Ryzen has an option to hang 2x sata ports or 2x m.2 sockets (instead of 1) off the cpu. The chipset provides an additional 4 ports (x570 for example). So for those, that is true, it depends. For Intel, its pretty standard as there isn't an additional options. Either you hang off the native ports, or 3rd party is handled by the chipset.

 

[ssjwizard]

On older and probably still some new boards the motherboard manufacture would add an additional SATA controller on the board to control the additional ports. I have a sabertooth 990x r2.0 in my main system and it sports 6 sata3 directly from the chipset and another 2 supported by an additional controller on the board giving me a total of 8 SATA3.0 ports.

 

[rainless]

On older and probably still some new boards the motherboard manufacture would add an additional SATA controller on the board to control the additional ports. I have a sabertooth 990x r2.0 in my main system and it sports 6 sata3 directly from the chipset and another 2 supported by an additional controller on the board giving me a total of 8 SATA3.0 ports.

Yeah I think that's what I'm dealing with. 2 ports on a different controller. I guess I just need to install the drivers for that one. My best guess is that windows is trying to treat it like a Gigabyte port but it's really not... so it works... until it doesn't.

I have a fairly simple setup: No m.2 drives... only one video card... I wouldn't have imagined I'd have any trouble at all... but I have.

Now where's the "weird question" guy at...

 

[EarthDog]

Well, here is the thing... you have six SATA ports on your Z390 board. All of those ports should be 'native' and not require a driver and do not use a 3rd party controller. If you take a look at the website for your motherboard and what drivers are available for SATA, you'll find that it is only Intel drivers and not an ASMedia (3rd party) driver (correct me if I am wrong).

That said, the theory that there are two different controllers on that board isn't true. I'd look at the device or the possibility that a port(s) are going bad? Consider updating the BIOS to the latest version, if only for giggles.

 

[UltraTaco]

Any advantage to using one type vs the other? How to know which ones are native nd which ones are nt?
Ps-everyone got a thanks!

 

[ssjwizard]

Native ports will always have the faster speed and latency if only by a very thin margin. Overall while you can probably measure it with a benchmark the real world performance should be the same.

 

[rainless]

Well, here is the thing... you have six SATA ports on your Z390 board. All of those ports should be 'native' and not require a driver and do not use a 3rd party controller. If you take a look at the website for your motherboard and what drivers are available for SATA, you'll find that it is only Intel drivers and not an ASMedia (3rd party) driver (correct me if I am wrong).

That said, the theory that there are two different controllers on that board isn't true. I'd look at the device or the possibility that a port(s) are going bad? Consider updating the BIOS to the latest version, if only for giggles.

That's weird... They're a different color and everything... Least I think they were. Let me take another look at the box... Ah... Four flat SATA and two L-shaped. So I guess they're all the same color... Weird. I'll look into the bios thing. But the board is like BRAND new... really shouldn't be any trouble with the ports...

 

[rainless]

Ok so I bought a brand new SSD to replace the old HDD. Was able to miraculously get the old drive to connect and copy all the data to the new drive via USB... but something ABSOLUTELY WEIRD is going on... The first thing I noticed is that Steam refused to install ANYTHING onto that drive. I thought "That's STRANGE..." checked all the settings and whatnot... Could find no reason why it would do that.

Whatever! Copied all the files to another drive. My boot drive is kinda low on space. So I figured I'd make a new Downloads folder on the new SSD and use the space that my SteamLibrary used to take up.

CRASHED THE SYSTEM.

Screen went black. I was just copying over an NVIDIA driver.

I do not get this at all... maybe the CABLE's just bad or something??

 

[rainless]

Well, here is the thing... you have six SATA ports on your Z390 board. All of those ports should be 'native' and not require a driver and do not use a 3rd party controller. If you take a look at the website for your motherboard and what drivers are available for SATA, you'll find that it is only Intel drivers and not an ASMedia (3rd party) driver (correct me if I am wrong).

That said, the theory that there are two different controllers on that board isn't true. I'd look at the device or the possibility that a port(s) are going bad? Consider updating the BIOS to the latest version, if only for giggles.

MYSTERY SOLVED! Was a bad SATA cable.

Used one of the ones that came with the MB and it worked fine.

 

[EarthDog]

Pesky cables!!!

 

[trents]

On older and probably still some new boards the motherboard manufacture would add an additional SATA controller on the board to control the additional ports. I have a sabertooth 990x r2.0 in my main system and it sports 6 sata3 directly from the chipset and another 2 supported by an additional controller on the board giving me a total of 8 SATA3.0 ports.

This. On older boards anyway, it was a way of adding additional SATA ports. Marvel was often the controller chip maker of choice.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

MYSTERY SOLVED! Was a bad SATA cable.

Used one of the ones that came with the MB and it worked fine.

Cables (internal and external) should always be the 1st thing to check, I looked at a neighbors PC and found the power cable to the SATA HDD was hanging and date cable to the SATA HDD was almost out of the connector.