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More Than 6 SATA Ports?
Seems like most mobos have six or fewer SATA ports.
The one I'm currently using as a WSH server only has six. I find that using RAID cards to enable more drives has it's hassles. When I shop for the next mobo, would I be wasting my time looking for something with 10 or 12 SATA ports - that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? -- Pete Cresswell |
#2
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More Than 6 SATA Ports?
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Seems like most mobos have six or fewer SATA ports. The one I'm currently using as a WSH server only has six. I find that using RAID cards to enable more drives has it's hassles. When I shop for the next mobo, would I be wasting my time looking for something with 10 or 12 SATA ports - that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? That's not going to happen - the "that doesn't cost an arm and a leg" thing. If it looks like a server or smells like a server, they'll charge server pricing. Use the search engine on Newegg, to look for something. ******* http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%2...Specifications $400 Z77 PCH - 4 SATA II - 2 SATA III LSI SAS 2308 - 8 x SAS2/SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Then the question would be, what would it cost for a SAS 2308 chip if purchased separately. It happens to be $300. The question then would be, whether the rest of the motherboard is worth more than $100. And, it probably is. It's got "a lotta junk on it". http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816118182 The difference might be in the level of support for the SAS. A reviewer on Newegg, for the Asrock board sez: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157343 "Cons: The 8-port onboard LSI SATA3 6G/Sec RAID controller looked really nice on paper, was a huge selling point, and convinced me to rush into this purchase... Unfortunately, it's performance has been pretty far under-par for me so far." You'd probably want to check out the driver situation, before buying the motherboard. Are drivers readily available ? Anyone else get good results with SAS 2308 ? And so on. Once you buy the motherboard, you're "married" to it. No pulling out the SAS2308 chip and installing something else. (Hopefully, it can be turned off in the BIOS.) It'll be tying up x4 or x8 PCI Express lanes, or some other number of lanes. And on a LGA1155 motherboard (selected for economy), there aren't that many PCI Express lanes to begin with (hosted by the CPU). The Asrock uses a couple PEX chips, to move the available bandwidth where needed (so that's a plus). See page 16 of the manual. http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-04...ck_diagram.jpg ftp://174.142.97.10/manual/Z77%20Extreme11.pdf For your storage server purposes, I doubt the PCI Express part is a limiting factor. So part of the $400 purchase price, pays for the two PEX chips and makes the board more usable. To make a simple storage server, you wouldn't go to that much trouble, as the x16 processor interface could run x8 to a single video card slot and x8 to the SAS2308. What's really unclear, is what market Asrock is selling that product to. Gamers who wanted a left over SAS2308 ? Or storage server builders who wanted left over video card slots ? ******* Have you considered using a SIL3132 card, and Port Multiplier boxes ? That's another way to achieve fanout on a regular motherboard. The SIL3132 uses an PCI Express x1 slot (x1 or larger). Such an approach would be suitable for DVR recording scenarios. We need someone to test these things :-) You know you wanna :-) http://www.sataport.com/ The wiring looks like this. One x1 PCI Express slot, can host 10 disks this way. PCI Express x1 --- SIL3132 (FIS) ----- Port Multiplexer ---- 5 disks ----- Port Multiplexer ---- 5 disks Total cost, around $250 or so. Say $100 for each 5 port box, and $50 or less for the SIL3132. And the cables of course. I'm hoping somewhere, you can find a box like that for less than $100. I see one here for $60 or so. So maybe they're not all price-fixed at $100. http://www.datoptic.com/silicon-imag...ultiplier.html Because the siliconimage web site is currently in a web monkey meltdown, I have to use an archive to find a description of the 4726 for you. Before spending $50 on a SIL3132 board, you can try it off a motherboard (Intel) host port first. If it doesn't work there, the SIL3132 should help. AFAIK, the SIL3132 has RAID software that makes all the ports off a Port Multiplier visible. http://web.archive.org/petabox/20130...ct.aspx?pid=74 Example of a SIL3132 for $24. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815124027 So that's another way to do it. I haven't even seen a benchmark for a Port Multiplier chip, so don't know whether it'll do 120MB/sec on a single disk or not. I haven't run into anyone yet, who has tested one. Paul |
#3
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More Than 6 SATA Ports?
Per Paul:
Have you considered using a SIL3132 card, and Port Multiplier boxes ? That's another way to achieve fanout on a regular motherboard. The SIL3132 uses an PCI Express x1 slot (x1 or larger). Such an approach would be suitable for DVR recording scenarios. We need someone to test these things :-) You know you wanna :-) I've got a couple of SIIG 2-port cards. One PCI and one PCI-Express. I've also got a PCI-Express Rocket-Raid with 4 ports. Sounds to me like I need to learn to love SATA cards. Right now, that's a challenge bc I'm stuck in the middle of a Windows Home Server re-install where it's not buying my SIIG PCI card's driver. Worked fine with it (same card, presumably the same driver) for years before.... but now it doesn't like it. Gonna obsess over it for a few more days and then, if I can't resolve it, just sacrifice the array and do a new install - trying the RocketRaid 4-port card instead just on GPs. Only reason I don't do that right now is an aversion to restoring 8 terabytes from scratch.... -- Pete Cresswell |
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