SSD & HDD on the same controller?

[Meaney]

Can a Solid State Drive run on the same controller as a HDD without degrading performance?

I currently have a 10,000rpm WD Raptor and a 7,200rpm 320GB WD HDD which I keep on separate controllers so that my Raptor isn't hobbled. I'm planning to buy an SSD and run all three (or more) drives, but I only have two controllers on my Asus K8N-E Deluxe motherboard — 2xSATA on the nForce chipset and 4xSATA on a Silicon Image controller.

I actually plan to buy another 7,200rpm HDD and configure it like this:

nForce controller 2xSATA: 1xSSD, 1xRaptor
SI controller 4xSATA: 1x320GB WD HDD, 1x[new drive]

 

[Meaney]

Well, I mean the native controller is on an NVIDIA chipset, not nForce. But I'm not allowed to edit my original post for some silly reason.

 

[cklaubur]

Since Serial ATA uses a separate cable for each drive, having all three drives on the same controller shouldn't affect hard drive speed. You'd probably notice a slight difference between the drives on the native SATA controller and the ones on the SI controller, since the SI controller is probably sharing the PCI bus.

Casey