8400 SATA ports?

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Does the Dimension 8400 have just two SATA ports? Are they SATA-I or
SATA-II? Is there room in the box for more than two 3.5" hard drives?
A friend wants to upgrade, and is wondering how far he can go...

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

There are four SATA connectors on the board, and by default, room for 2
3.5" internal drives.

Going beyond that means either buying an adapter for the 5.25" bay
and/or sacrificing the floppy drive.

There are only two SATA power connectors, so if you add more SATA drives
that come without MOLEX connectors, you'll need power converters in
addition to the drives and data cables.


William P. N. Smith wrote:
> Does the Dimension 8400 have just two SATA ports? Are they SATA-I or
> SATA-II? Is there room in the box for more than two 3.5" hard drives?
> A friend wants to upgrade, and is wondering how far he can go...
>
> Thanks!
>

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:5llme.33$4u.23@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
> There are four SATA connectors on the board, and by default, room for 2
> 3.5" internal drives.
>
> Going beyond that means either buying an adapter for the 5.25" bay and/or
> sacrificing the floppy drive.
>
> There are only two SATA power connectors, so if you add more SATA drives
> that come without MOLEX connectors, you'll need power converters in
> addition to the drives and data cables.
>
>


As usual, Ed's on the money.


While Dell doesn't specify the SATA spec on their Intel 925 board:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim8400/SM/specs.htm#wp1052308

The Intel website suggests that both versions of the 925 are SATA 1:

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/express_flyer.htm


Therefore I'd speculate the 8400 has SATA1.


Stew

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Intel hasn't yet released a SATA2 chipset -- all current ones are SATA1.



S.Lewis wrote:

>
> Therefore I'd speculate the 8400 has SATA1.
>
>
> Stew
>
>

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Edward J. Neth" <ejn63@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:rZDme.401$rL7.42@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com...
> Intel hasn't yet released a SATA2 chipset -- all current ones are SATA1.
>
>
>


Ed,

Judging by the data transfer rates, I think the 945 and 955 chipsets are
SATA 2 (those rates drastically increased from the 915 and 925).

Unless I misunderstand, this claims a leap from 150MB/s to 3GB/s.


Dimension 8400
925 chipset: http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/925xe/index.htm

Dimension 9100
955 chipset: http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/955x/index.htm


Seeing those numbers, I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the 8400/925 has
the "old" SATA standard, and the 9100/955 has SATA2.


Stew