SATA cable splitter??

gizmo1990 · 1 Nov 2009 at 22:22

I've got a Zotac 9300 mini itx board which has 2 SATA ports. Currently I have my hard drive plugged into one and my dvd drive in the other. However, I've just bought a ssd which I'll be using as my boot drive. How do I go about using all three devices? Can I buy a splitter cable for SATA? I've been looking around for one but can't find any.. Surely there must be someway around this?

Advice greatly appreciated.

Rensin · 1 Nov 2009 at 22:25

You looked at a SATA controller card which will go into your PCI slot?

gizmo1990 · 1 Nov 2009 at 22:37

Nope, no space!

Surely this is possible..? Like daisy chaining ide drives together as master and slave?

PhillyDee · 1 Nov 2009 at 22:39

Only if the controller supports splitting the disks. Known as a port multiplier.

Otherwise, no. A thousand times no. Hence SERIAL ata.

Makhaira · 1 Nov 2009 at 22:40

Not possible I'm afraid. IDE and SATA are totally different. You need some form of SATA controller, or replace your DVD drive with an IDE one (you won't notice the performance impact because the interface is still far faster than the drive speeds).

J.B · 2 Nov 2009 at 10:50

The only trouble with replacing the optical with an IDE is the extra bulk of the cables.

Im afraid the only alternative is a SATA controller in the PCI slot. This is the trouble with the mATX boards, they are really only good for a glorified DVD player.

gizmo1990 · 2 Nov 2009 at 11:46

NNNNNnnnnooooooo!!!

Urgh.. that is very very annoying! Oh well there goes my dvd drive.

You learn something every day I guess! Thanks for the advice chaps.

Servo · 2 Nov 2009 at 12:16

Hmmm, why not put the second hd onto the E-sata port, and use the ssd for boot drive?

JonJ678 · 2 Nov 2009 at 12:26

There's another option. You can buy pata (ide) to sata adapters, it's a little card which plugs into the ide socket, and has two sockets for sata drives. Cost £9 last time I looked.

Booting from it may be tricky, hard to say. For a storage drive you're laughing though.

bledd · 2 Nov 2009 at 12:30

JonJ678 said:
There's another option. You can buy pata (ide) to sata adapters, it's a little card which plugs into the ide socket, and has two sockets for sata drives. Cost £9 last time I looked.

Booting from it may be tricky, hard to say. For a storage drive you're laughing though.

That board only has sata ports

http://techreport.com/r.x/ces-2009/zotac-board.jpg

Either get a pci-e sata controller card, or ditch the hard drive or dvd drive

JonJ678 · 2 Nov 2009 at 12:47

Oops. The above talk of using a pata optical drive threw me. Cheers bledd.

gizmo1990 · 2 Nov 2009 at 13:07

Servo said:
Hmmm, why not put the second hd onto the E-sata port, and use the ssd for boot drive?

eSATA ports on the outside and being fussy I'd rather the HD was inside as there's space. Looks like I may have to just get a extenal dvd drive eventually. Are eSATA one's made? Would they be any faster than USB ones?

bru · 2 Nov 2009 at 14:22

get yourself a sata to usb converter and run the dvd off of that. they are about a tenner and you would only have to have a small usb cable comming out the back to one of the usb sockets.

bledd · 2 Nov 2009 at 14:29

If you need a dvd drive

I'd just buy a USB2 one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-111-SA&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=494

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-119-SA&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=494

ANDARIAL · 2 Nov 2009 at 17:13

gizmo1990 said:
eSATA ports on the outside and being fussy I'd rather the HD was inside as there's space. Looks like I may have to just get a extenal dvd drive eventually. Are eSATA one's made? Would they be any faster than USB ones?

It is a bit of a bodge but can`t you get a sata to E-sata cable connect one end to the storage hdd and thread the other end out through a a hole or pci slot and connect to the E-sata?

JonJ678 · 2 Nov 2009 at 19:40

Alternatively usb internal header to normal usb to sata, running the sata dvd player off one of the internal usb headers. Also clumsy, but internal.

gizmo1990 · 2 Nov 2009 at 20:11

JonJ678 said:
Alternatively usb internal header to normal usb to sata, running the sata dvd player off one of the internal usb headers. Also clumsy, but internal.

Nice, I like it! Having a look for the cables now...

gizmo1990 · 2 Nov 2009 at 21:11

Hmm, are you sure these cables exist? I can't find them anywhere..

hubby1989 · 2 Nov 2009 at 23:17

If I was you, I would either buy the PCI Sata Controller OR just get an eSata to Sata cable...or most likely just ditch the Sata DVD and get an IDE..as previously said, there is no performance loss, just a huge IDE cable...but you can buy some fancy IDE cables :-)

JonJ678 · 2 Nov 2009 at 23:54

Yeah, completely confident they exist. At least I've got some here which strongly suggest they do.

Usb headers on the board are an array of 9 pins, then there's a cable with a block on both ends which goes to a very small pcb with an external usb socket on it. I admit I took this from an old case and cut off the e-sata and firewire ports. I've then screwed it to a spare hole on the side of a hard drive and have usb sticks plugged into it (live cds), so I've basically just moved the front panel connectors into the case where it feels tidier.

USB to sata should be a doddle to find, googling "usb to sata" finds loads. However they do expect an external usb socket, hence the above hacking up of an unloved case. You could instead take a motherboard to front panel cable, hack the end off and solder the appropriate pins directly to the sata adapter but that's a bit brutal for my tastes. The above option would leave a fair mass of cables at the junction, but they can be tucked away in most cases.