GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X hard drive/SATA limit question

R

raytray

Active member
hi guys,

with help from the forum guys here, i bought a pc last Christmas with the GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X motherboard. [ i'm coming back to PC building after 20 years so some of this is newish to me. ]

the PC came with an SSD and a DVD drive in the bays so these are using 2 SATA slots

the motherboard had 6 SATA slots in total - so I assume I can only add another 4 SATA HDD drives

at the time of purchase I mentioned that I would like a PC where I could potentially have a 7-drive RAID - physically, the case can accommodate this and the PSU can also (RM850x) but am I right in saying that the motherboard cannot?

all help appreciated.

thanks
ray
 
R

raytray

Active member
okay. so I posted the above after randomly deciding at 1am to take my PC apart. (damn this insomnia)

anyway, i now see from a google search that you can get SATA cards like the ones here https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Network-Interface-Cards/Syba-PCI-e-Controller-Profile-Brackets/B00ESFEI2E

An 8-port would definitely help to make the ports more accessible for me than a 4-port.

On the link above there is a Marvell 88SE9705 (less expensive) and a Marvell 88SE9215 (more expensive).

Under the Marvell 88SE9705 description it says :
Supports Communication Speeds of 6.0 Gbps, 3.0 Gbps, and 1.5 Gbps
Supports Port Multiplier FIS Based Switching or Command Based Switching
Marvell 88SE9705 chipset

Under the 88SE9215 it says :
Marvell 88SE9215 + 88SM9705 chipset
Connect up to 8 SATA devices at a time
Software RAID Capable

Not really sure what I should be looking at or going for here....one of these or something completely different?

thanks
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Looking back on the original topic it seems nobody directly addressed the number of sata ports you'd need - although the X99 motherboards and accompanying CPUs were vastly more expensive so the advice not to go with one was sound.

I'm not sure what the best card to get would be.

Out of interest what is the 7 drive raid for? if you went for thard how did you get on with it?
 
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