Asus Rampage III - SATA III Ports.

cigarjohn

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Nov 3, 2010
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My question is:

On the Asus Rampage III Extreme, there are only two ports to connect two drives on 6 Gbps. So if I were to purchase one SSD and attach it to one of my 6 gbps ports and purchase another SSD like the Crucial RevoCard which is a PCI based SSD, would the system automatically detect the PCI SSD and use the other SATA III port for it to work. Or will the SSD card operate on its own and free up a SATA III port on my mobo to use for something else.

I know that I can use SATA II but I prefer the SATA III instead.

The reason I'm asking this question is that I have many different storage options I am considering for my first computer build.

I was going to purchase one 128 gb SSD and two VelociRaptors 10k 600 gb and put them on a Raid 0. But now I have three drives and only two 6 gbps ports. So I was thinking of purchasing a Raid controller card since it's supposed to support 6 gbps. I know I can downgrade the drives to SATA II but they were made for the SATA III ports so I want to utilize them to there most possible performance levels.

But if the Raid contorller card supports 6 gbps drives, when the card is installed in an 8x PCI Slot, do I have to connect the mobo's SATA III ports to the card or will the card have its own SATA III on it.

This is so confusing.

I don't see any mobo's out there that have more than 2 SATA III's on them. And with technology improving so rapidly, the mobo manufactures won't push the envelope and include more SATA III ports. Were very limited.

I hope I didn't confuse you with my question. If I did, I'm sorry.

I'm just looking for better storage options. I guess I can only utilize one 10k drive and one SSD or two 10k drives on SATA III.

Your suggestions and comments are will always be greatly appreciated.

Peace.

 
No, you won't loose a SATA port if you use a PCIe based SSD; no connections required. However, I tend to prefer leaving my PCIe open for GPUs.

Ideally, the 128GB SSD + RAID 1 HDD is preferred; RAID 0 is a very risky place for any data. The WD VelociRaptor are not a good bang for the buck; instead I would RAID (4) 1TB SATA2 or SATA3 (no gain in speed for a HDD) 7200 RPM Samsung or Hitachi or WD RE3/RE4 HDDs.

DO NOT confuse 6.0 Gb/s / 3.0 Gb/s Interfaces with SSD/HDD speeds. Example your WD VelociRaptor is ~ 1/2 peak SATA2 Speed at ~ 145 MB/s.

The 10/15K unless SAS are a waste of your $.
 

cigarjohn

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O.K. You mentioned RAID (4) 1TB. What raid config are you using?

Also, I do a daily backup of my raid 0 drives.

How about mobo raid compared to a controller cards raid? Will the card be better?
 
Depend on the rig I build. Some are RAID 0 C300 256GB + RAID 1 1TB, some are RAID 10, some SSD + RAID 1. Keep in mind I {paid} hobby build typically very high-end.

Better is always the Dedicated RAID Controller, but RAID 0/1/10 are easy for both the MOBO + CPU {no parity calculations}.

Current C4E is SSD + RAID 1:
Description
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT90ZFBGRBOX
XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0
Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
LG Black 10X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Disc Combo Model UH10LS20 LightScribe Support
LG WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner - LightScribe Support
TBD (2 kits 16GB) G.SKILL Flare Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model F3-16000CL9D-8GBFL
Corsair CC800DW Obsidian 800D Full Tower Case
CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Koolance Block - CPU-360 (CPU), Rev1.2
TBD Koolance TBD Chipset Block
(3) Koolance Block - GPU VID-AR587T2
TBD Koolance custom Water Cooling {incl TMS-200, 3x120 Radiator}
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64BIT Operating System Software - OEM DVD