3 or more SATA internal drives?

[carvin]

My mb has 2 connectors for SATA drives (and 2 for PATA). I want to use at least 3 SATA internal drives. Is this possible, daisy-chaining one drive to another? Or am I just stuck with 2 only?

[Kursah]

Dunno...I've always used 1 SATA per SATA connector as I've only ever had a 1 plug SATA Cable. I would say get an SATA PCI card if you really need a 3rd SATA...or a bigger drive.

:toast:

[acousticlemur]

" SATA drives don't "daisy chain" and each one needs a separate data connection to the controller "

found here

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid5_gci1099026,00.html#

[carvin]

Thanks for the web site link. That sucks. Two PATA connectors supports 4 drives, and it's much older technology. The newer technology should be able to do at least what the older can, IMO.

[Kursah]

Yeah, but the newer technology is faster and more efficient, to me it's a good trade-off. Plus the smaller cable is easier to manage and hide. Then again, my board has like 6 or 7 SATA2 plugs so I've got plenty of room. Like I said you could get an SATA2 PCI Card and be good to go.

:toast:

[Polaris573]

You can purchase a PCI expansion card with more SATA ports on it.

[JrRacinFan]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124007

have fun! ;)

[tzitzibp]

You can purchase a PCI expansion card with more SATA ports on it.

That´s it....:)

however, check the internet, as there have been several reports about problems caused by this type of expansion cards....:shadedshu

In my opinion you are better off using the available two sata connectors and add a third ide hdd for storage.:cool:

[DanTheBanjoman]

That´s it....:)

however, check the internet, as there have been several reports about problems caused by this type of expansion cards....:shadedshu


Why would that be? It's not like they're some kind of odd hacked together Chinese junk.

[Grimskull]

SATA hard drives have no master or slave on them. There fore they cannot be "daisy-chained" like PATA drives. One SATA port for each drive.

PCI expansion cards cannot be booted from so they wouldnt be any good for a JBOD RAID setup.

[DanTheBanjoman]

PCI expansion cards cannot be booted from so they wouldnt be any good for a JBOD RAID setup.

Where do you get your information?

As long as the card has a BIOS on it it can boot, and most do. Also what does JBOD or RAID have to do with anything? Also, you actually think onboard RAID is the only way to boot from an array? That would be hilarious.

[francis511]

You can purchase a PCI expansion card with more SATA ports on it.

FTW ! And I boot off one regularly

[VulkanBros]

SATA hard drives have no master or slave on them. There fore they cannot be "daisy-chained" like PATA drives. One SATA port for each drive.

PCI expansion cards cannot be booted from so they wouldnt be any good for a JBOD RAID setup.

That is not correct...my second rig has a NEC PCI SATA Controller with 2 SATA ports...
And I boot directly from at SATA disk on that controller....

[JrRacinFan]

Exactly why I linked that specific controller. It has a bios. ;)

[kenkickr]

I know at my work we sell a PATA to 2 SATA adapters. We have one plugged into our backup system since lately we have been getting so many systems with SATA drives and it works perfect!

[tzitzibp]

Why would that be? It's not like they're some kind of odd hacked together Chinese junk.

I really don't know, i can only guess... faulty drivers, incompatible hardware or software, conflicts, overstressing issues etc...or even chinese junk

Only recently a collegue of mine had a problem with such a card, giving him IO errors, out of time transfer errors and so on.... I did a bit of research and found out that there are many out there with same problems... mainly older boards with new cards...
anyway,I don't know what he did with it.....nor have I ever faced such a problem.....as i never used such a card....

[DanTheBanjoman]

I really don't know, i can only guess... faulty drivers, incompatible hardware or software, conflicts, overstressing issues etc...or even chinese junk

Only recently a collegue of mine had a problem with such a card, giving him IO errors, out of time transfer errors and so on.... I did a bit of research and found out that there are many out there with same problems... mainly older boards with new cards...
anyway,I don't know what he did with it.....nor have I ever faced such a problem.....as i never used such a card....

So an incident suddenly speaks for all "such expansion card". I've seen onboard controllers cause the same.

In my experience a decent card is countless times better than onboard. Then again I'm not speaking about 5-10$ eBay things from Hong Kong, and even those work fine in my experience.

[newtekie1]

Thanks for the web site link. That sucks. Two PATA connectors supports 4 drives, and it's much older technology. The newer technology should be able to do at least what the older can, IMO.

The daisy chaining "feature" was actually considered a bad thing in the industry as it made an already slow connection even slower and added unneccessary confusion.

[JrRacinFan]

Exactly! Amen to that newtekie!

[tzitzibp]

Why would that be? It's not like they're some kind of odd hacked together Chinese junk.

I thought I should be more specific....so here it is:\\

My collegue kept getting this error: Windows - Delayed Write Failed which is described as "Windows was unable to save all the data for the file File_path\File_name. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection".

It seemed to me an issue, regularly appearing in networks.....:wtf:

I started google and searched for...:eek:"pci to sata Delayed Write Failed problems" and got lots of junk:shadedshu as well as lots of info:D about either the same or similar issues....:banghead:

The most common reference was microSOFT article num. 885464

and here we are talking about it...... :toast:

[tzitzibp]

So an incident suddenly speaks for all "such expansion card". I've seen onboard controllers cause the same.

In my experience a decent card is countless times better than onboard. Then again I'm not speaking about 5-10$ eBay things from Hong Kong, and even those work fine in my experience.

No!!! you got it wrong... I never ment to generalize.... I was just suggesting caution before buying....

[DanTheBanjoman]

I thought I should be more specific....so here it is:\\

My collegue kept getting this error: Windows - Delayed Write Failed which is described as "Windows was unable to save all the data for the file File_path\File_name. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection".

It seemed to me an issue, regularly appearing in networks.....:wtf:

I started google and searched for...:eek:"pci to sata Delayed Write Failed problems" and got lots of junk:shadedshu as well as lots of info:D about either the same or similar issues....:banghead:

The most common reference was microSOFT article num. 885464

and here we are talking about it...... :toast:


You search for an error in combination with "PCI to sata" and it surprises you that you find problems about your search words? That's the whole point of search words.

Thing is, delayed write failure is an issue with a storage system, could be harddisk, controller, cable or some network issue if using a network drive. Your more specific explanation doesn't say anything about it happening more to PCI adapters than to on board adapters.

I've seen the error plenty of times. Due to bad termination on a SCSI bus, bad disks, crap network connection. In fact I can recreate it right now via FTPdrive, when accessing multiple things at once it'll shit out. (read only access so I can't damage anything on the server)


If I Google SCSI delayed write failed I'd find a lot of issues with SCSI controller, does this mean these problems are common on SCSI systems? According to your example it does.

[tzitzibp]

You search for an error in combination with "PCI to sata" and it surprises you that you find problems about your search words? That's the whole point of search words.

Thing is, delayed write failure is an issue with a storage system, could be harddisk, controller, cable or some network issue if using a network drive. Your more specific explanation doesn't say anything about it happening more to PCI adapters than to on board adapters.

I've seen the error plenty of times. Due to bad termination on a SCSI bus, bad disks, crap network connection. In fact I can recreate it right now via FTPdrive, when accessing multiple things at once it'll shit out. (read only access so I can't damage anything on the server)


If I Google SCSI delayed write failed I'd find a lot of issues with SCSI controller, does this mean these problems are common on SCSI systems? According to your example it does.


I only searched through the links where "pci-sata adaptor" is marked and i realized that there is an issue with these cards.... You say "like any other hardware", no arguments there....

As I said I only recently found out that this problem could be encountered using this kind of cards and I comment on it..... with the thought that if he wants to buy a specific one he should look into it..

[DanTheBanjoman]

As I said I only recently found out that this problem could be encountered using this kind of cards and I comment on it..... with the thought that if he wants to buy a specific one he should look into it..

That's my point, it could be encountered with any type of card. Or even any type of storage related hardware. Your case doesn't give any numbers. There are about a million things you could encounter, yet the odds are slim so you shouldn't bother with it. If you encounter an issue you can always return a product.
You're sketching an image where this issue is quite common compared to other products or even in general. Which you support by saying you found people having the issue on Google by actually searching for exactly this issue.

Perhaps if you'd search for just delayed write failed and half the cases are caused by a PCI controller on different hardware (all on the same board or with the same drive would point to the board or drive) I would say there is an issue with them. Though searching for A, finding A and saying A is an issue while search results for B might be 20x larger is taking things out of perspective.

[tigger]

Heres a nice one for just over £5 in the uk.


http://pctradestore.com/code/ui/main/product_info.aspx?prdid=VIA&catid=9&heading=4 Port Serial SATA PCI Storage controller (RAID) ATA Adapter Card (2 internal, 1 external) + 1 Internal Ultra IDE Port

[Steevo]

I bought a basic RAID controller to replace the onboard for our server. It supports hot plugging and online migration, staggers spin up, transparent smart monitoring, RAID 5 hot rebuild. As well as maximising the transfer capabilitys of PCI. Four ports, 16MB onboard cache buffer, and it offloads RAID 5 calculations from the CPU unlike almost all onboard controllers.



$96 from the egg.


The only thing I wish is that it was PCI-E.

[newtekie1]

Steevo has the right idea, don't cheap out on SATA or RAID controller cards. $96 is actually cheap for a controller cards, IMO.

[Grimskull]

Where do you get your information?

As long as the card has a BIOS on it it can boot, and most do. Also what does JBOD or RAID have to do with anything? Also, you actually think onboard RAID is the only way to boot from an array? That would be hilarious.

Sorry... i should clarify... i didnt have time to write it out fully when i orignally posted.

If the PCI card has a BIOS on it....then yes you are good to go..... but some (a very small few) of them dont... so check before you buy.... save you the RMA process or returning it.....


If he has 3 SATA hard drives he can make a JBOD RAID setup, its just an option for a possible .... or leave them all as IDE on the BIOS.... another option.... have 2 for stripe RAID (0) and one on it own for storage/backup... etc etc...... He doesnt have to set them up as RAID drives.


And no i dont think onboard RAID is the only way to boot from an array... like i said above...i didnt have much time to write the original post.. so sorry for not being clear

just on SATA drives... daisy-chaining cant be done.... one drive to one SATA port....
there is no jumper setting on sata hard drives for master or slave on them... if buying a PCI card for them... spend the little extra and save a fortune!

[Steevo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115047


This is a good deal.

[newtekie1]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115040

That one is good too, Highpoint makes very good controller cards.

[Steevo]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116041

This and two large drives would be insane fast in RAID0

Or for more serious applications.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116042

[newtekie1]

Steevo, you just picked out the only two controller manufactures I buy from. Highpoint and 3ware. :toast:

[Steevo]

I used a Highpoint in our server.




Basicly don't think you are going to get server class results out of cheap hardware. If you want the performance you have to pay. Just like cars, and women.

[tzitzibp]

That's my point, it could be encountered with any type of card. Or even any type of storage related hardware. Your case doesn't give any numbers. There are about a million things you could encounter, yet the odds are slim so you shouldn't bother with it. If you encounter an issue you can always return a product.
You're sketching an image where this issue is quite common compared to other products or even in general. Which you support by saying you found people having the issue on Google by actually searching for exactly this issue.

Perhaps if you'd search for just delayed write failed and half the cases are caused by a PCI controller on different hardware (all on the same board or with the same drive would point to the board or drive) I would say there is an issue with them. Though searching for A, finding A and saying A is an issue while search results for B might be 20x larger is taking things out of perspective.

my original comment was mis-interpreted and that is my fault

Of course it can be encountered with any type of card, it can be encountered with any product. But wouldn't you like to know about what you buy? I want to buy a case, and i like the looks of a dozen of them out there, but mostly one..... so then i will try to find out what problems or faults there might be with it... minimize possibilities of getting something faulty, is something i like to do.... I bother with it as much as i possibly think it nececcary to insure that i won't have to return a product. And that is my advice to anyone.....

Google can be used in many ways.... but at this search, for that collegue, I had no reason to go any deeper...but for that case, my case, (probably xazer vi) i would and i did....



Though searching for A, finding A and saying A is an issue while search results for B might be 20x larger is taking things out of perspective.

Yes but his problem might be that 1/20 of the search results, unless he searches for A(specific) and minimize that to 1/200 or less.....