SATA ports question

[edx1515]

Using an ASUS A8N SLI DeLuxe motherboard, I want to build a system with 3 HDDs and 2 Optical Drives, all SATA.

The HDDs will NOT be configured for RAID.

The A8N SLI Deluxe has 4 "regular" SATA ports & 4 "RAID" ports.

Will such a system be successful, or do I need a PCI card with SATA ports?

Sincerely,
edx1515

 

[Pain]

Not sure there are even SATA optical drives available yet, though they probably are, but why must you have all SATA drives? I certainly wouldn't buy an extra controller just so I could use SATA optical drives that are slow as molassas anyway, electrically speaking.

 

[edx1515]

SATA Optical Drives exist.

I have used Plextor PX - 716 SA drives for > 1 year.

Thanks for the reply.

Sincerely,
edx1515

 

[Pain]

Figured they must, but I've not looked for them. But, the point remains the same, optical drives are slow. However, if you want to reuse your current drives along with a gaggle of SATA HD's then I guess getting another controller might be cheaper than replacing the drives. Can't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

 

[baracuda73]

connect the hd's to the sata raid and the opticals to the other controller. You then configure each hd individually as raid 0. i have done the same thing it works fine.

 

[bombasschicken]

Figured they must, but I've not looked for them. But, the point remains the same, optical drives are slow. However, if you want to reuse your current drives along with a gaggle of SATA HD's then I guess getting another controller might be cheaper than replacing the drives. Can't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

who cares if they are slow.. IDE cables are so damn ugly.. SATA are nice and clean looking..

as they other guy said config them indevidually as RAID 0..

and i dont mean to jack your thread.. but does anyone know if you can connect one of those IDE to SATA connectors to a DVDRW drive and have it still work??? i wonder.. i would love to just go SATA...

 

[Pain]

I personally wouldn't spend extra money on a controller to be able to not use an ugly cable when I could just purchase an IDE optical drive to begin with. But, if it's a matter of wanting to reuse SATA opticals that one already has instead of buying new drives, then OK, I can see that point.

But hey, what ever floats your boat I guess. You can get round IDE cables if you want.

 

[bombasschicken]

yeah but the rounded cables are still stiff and there is alot of cross-talk.. sata are just easier.. no 80pin crap.. just a small clean connector...

 

[halcyon]

I can't imagine why not, those PATA-to-SATA converters work for faster hard drive throughput so I can't imagine why they'd not work for slower optical throughput.

...but to be accurate and fair, I've not tried it myself.... :roll: