sata drives per channel

Discussion in 'Storage Devices' started by wild0104, Feb 10, 2004.

  1. wild0104

    wild0104 Geek Trainee

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    sorry this may have already been answered somewhere but i couldn't find it searching the forum so i figure i'll ask away. I was under the impression that sata could only support 1 drive per channel, but a friend the other day said it could support more. So my question is can SATA only support 1 drive per channel?

    Thanks
     
  2. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    To avoid semantical problems, let's just say SATA can only support one device per channel*. It's a point-to-point cabling system, so you don't need to worry about jumpers anymore. Because other devices such as CD-drives usually use EIDE, you don't need as many SATA channels (yet) anyway. But, if you do need more channels, you can always buy an inexpensive ($15) PCI SATA controller.


    *Technically, you can connect multiple devices to one SATA channel, but this would only be applicable for SATA backplanes in servers.
     
  3. wild0104

    wild0104 Geek Trainee

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    ok, thanks that answers my question perfectly...as i've got 2 onboard sata chans as well as 2 IDE chans i think i'm set atm for hdd's
     
  4. Anti-Trend

    Anti-Trend Nonconformist Geek

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    Glad to help. Oh, and welcome to Hardware Forums :)
     

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