Why do motherboards tend to have 2 sets of SATA controllers?

[Chrushev]

Hi, I have this motherboard http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3014#sp
GA-EP45T-UD3P

I recently started getting blue screens during boot (0x0000007B) which is a stop error and from my research seems to indicate that there is a file access issue.

I have run sfc scans and chkdisk, both came clean. ive done registry sweeps, driver updates etc etc... all came clean.

This leads me to believe that its the on board SATA controller going bad (the board is a few years old anyways).

So that board has 2 SATA controllers (6x yellow ports, and 2x purple ports). I was thinking about switching to the purple ones to see if the issue goes away.

But this brought up a question in my head... why do manufacturers tend to put 2 SATA controllers on the board? I know that in some cases one set will be 6GB/S and other will be 3GB/S... but in my case they are identical (or so it seems?)

Thanks!

 

[noahhicks]

Not a great answer, but here's what another forum said about your question... way back in 2005!

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=244553

 

[jarotech]

Hi, you only have one I/O controller Hub, it's the ICH10R who is the only controller you have on your motherboard.

 

[Chrushev]

Hi, you only have one I/O controller Hub, it's the ICH10R who is the only controller you have on your motherboard.

That doesnt seem right. There seems to be a Southbridge controller and Gigabyte Chip controller... From the spec:

South Bridge:
6x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_0, SATA2_1, SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5) supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:
1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_0, GSATA2_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD

 

[mc962]

I'm not entirely sure if this is what you are talking about but I do know that some boards have the Intel SATA controller ports and a seperate 3rd party controller for additional ports. The Intel ones are generally those that are recommended to run the boot drive off of as it often doesnt work so well from the 3rd party controller. My Z87 Sabertooth board is an example of such a set up, with the intel ports that I plug my hard drives into, but also separate (and different colored) ports controlled by the Asmedia controller

I can't tell for certain, but it looked a bit like that to me

 

[Tradesman1]

Yes, to this day the mobo makers often add a second controller to be able to offer more additional SATA connections

 

[mc962]

Regardless, I wouldnt recommend putting your boot drive on the 3rd party controller. From those that I've heard that did it there generally weren't the best experiences, and even the board manufacturer's don't really recommend it (at least ASUS doesnt)