Not enough SATA ports!!

jamesgoss

jamesgoss

jamesgoss

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Joined
6 Jan 2009
Posts
425
Hi all,

I've got a very annoying problem. I have a P5N-E sli mobo which has 4 SATA data ports. My system has the following SATA devices attached:

1 x DVDRW
2 x 250GB HDDs

Everything is hunky dory, for now.

I want to buy another 2 x 1TB HDDs and RAID 1 them, which would leave me with one device with no SATA port on the mobo. Then RAID 0 my 250gb HDDs.

So instead of removing one of the 250Gb HDDs, I'll buy an external DVDRW.

What are people's experience with using an external DVDRW via usb?

The main worry I have is using bootable discs in a USB external DVDRW drive - will it be the same as if it were internal? I don't want to be in the position where my PC won't boot into windows and I need to use the windows disc to boot from etc.

Thanks
 
My motherboard has 6 SATA ports plus an eSATA one and one IDE connector (for 2 devices). Does your motherboard have an IDE connector? If so, you could buy an adapter for less money than an external drive would cost.
 
AAAAHHH! I knew there must have been simpler solutions! Thanks guys. I was being exceedingly dense :o

I'd thought about buying another DVD drive, but IDE, but now I can just get an adaptor. Awesome! Would it be a mere matter of a cable with a SATA head at one end that then had an IDE head at the other to attach to the IDE port on the mobo?
 
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There's a SATA to IDE adapter on ********* for £17 - I'm sure if you looked around you could find one for less. Of course, an IDE drive might turn out to be cheaper, in which case you can just buy that and save the SATA one for future use (or sell/give to a friend, etc.).
 
DragonQ said:
There's a SATA to IDE adapter on **********for £17 - I'm sure if you looked around you could find one for less. Of course, an IDE drive might turn out to be cheaper, in which case you can just buy that and save the SATA one for future use (or sell/give to a friend, etc.).
Click to expand...

Ah that's more like it, thanks for that, I'll have a hunt for those. If not, it's an IDE drive for me.
 
IDE/PATA drive makes more sense than an adapter to me, seems cleaner. I sold my sata optical drive and bought a second hand ide one.

I don't use the drive often though, optical drives probably vary in quality like everything else and I just haven't noticed
 
Sorry about that, I forgot this was a forum for a specific site. I post at too many places, clearly. :p

I got a SATA optical drive but I'm still not sure if it was the right choice - I've got 2 HDDs with future plans for an SSD and another big drive and one of my SATA ports is used up connecting to the eSATA port on the front of my case. If necessary I'll have to just unplug that and use the on-board eSATA port instead but that's a bit annoying since it's at the back rather than on top of the case..

On the other hand, whilst this motherboard has an IDE controller, not all do so if I had an IDE optical drive and ever had to replace the motherboard, I might not be able to use it.

Swings and roundabouts. :)
 
You should be able to get a 4 port PCIe SATA card at auction for less than £20 delivered. Far less hassle than IDE<>SATA converters and easy to move between machines.
 
You should have no problems just using an external drive, but instead of buying one can you get a SATA enclosure for your current one?
 
rpstewart said:
You should be able to get a 4 port PCIe SATA card at auction for less than £20 delivered. Far less hassle than IDE<>SATA converters and easy to move between machines.
Click to expand...

Just taking a look at those actually. Would SATA at 1.5Gb/s be fast enough for standard hard drives? I assume it definitely is for DVD drives.

MeatLoaf said:
You should have no problems just using an external drive, but instead of buying one can you get a SATA enclosure for your current one?
Click to expand...

There are few SATA enclosures, most of which look hideous and are more expensive than an IDE DVD drive, which is a shame. And it adds yet another plug behind my PC. It was my original choice (as removing the DVD drive would make my Lian Li case look better), but these other solutions seem slightly more elegant, I think.
 
surely that would cut the bandwidgh (damm late nights :( ) using a adpotor

and I can fit a raid card in my PC :( one too many GPU in my way :(
 
You can get PATA <-> SATA converters for only a few quid from auction sites, if you can wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive.

Got one in my Sky+ box allowing me to use a SATA disk in there. Although in your case, you'd put the optical drive on it.
 
Optical drives do not benefit from SATA's higher bandwidth. Even 12x BD is only 54MB/s maximum and PATA can do a maximum of 133MB/s with UDMA Mode 6. In fact, assuming such a SATA to PATA adapter supports UDMA Mode 5 or 6, using an external drive is probably worse (unless it's eSATA) because 54MB/s is nearly saturating USB 2.0 speed.

If you're only talking about a CD/DVD drive then it'll never reach higher than 27MB/s anyway so even UDMA Mode 2 (33.3MB/s) will be fine.
 
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DragonQ said:
Optical drives do not benefit from SATA's higher bandwidth. Even 12x BD is only 54MB/s maximum and PATA can do a maximum of 133MB/s with UDMA Mode 6. In fact, assuming such a SATA to PATA adapter supports UDMA Mode 5 or 6, using an external drive is probably worse (unless it's eSATA) because 54MB/s is nearly saturating USB 2.0 speed.

If you're only talking about a CD/DVD drive then it'll never reach higher than 27MB/s anyway so even UDMA Mode 2 (33.3MB/s) will be fine.
Click to expand...

Sounds good! I think I'm pretty much decided on the IDE drive. Thanks a lot everyone, you've all been great
 
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