In the market for a Mobo

[Detale]

Hey guys, long time no see. I've been super busy working 80+ hours a week for the past few months, needless to say the computer time is at an all time low and I wanted to get a new Mobo with 10 SATA ports, but I'm a bit out of the loop as it were. I am using the 8 I have now on my Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R and I'm going to add another 1 TB drive and prob another burner as well (Blu- Ray maybe) As of now the SATA ports are being used 4 HDD's and 2 DVD drives. Also but less important is I'd like to have two ethernet ports and possibly an ESATA port but that aint a biggie at all. Any advice is, as usual, greatly appreciated. Thanks again guys and I hope all of you and your families are doing well. Hopefully work will ease up a bit and I'll be back in force. Thanks again

[brightsid]

If you have a free pci you can get a sata controller and add a few sata ports

[clocker]

There is a new SATA spec- faster, more bandwidth- on the very near horizon.
Currently kinda buggy, it will be ironed out and implemented soon...probably before Christmas, I'd guess.

Wait till you can get a board with that.

[Detale]

As usual you're awesome Clock ;). Thanks for the info I will surely wait a while for the new spec. Any info on it?

[tesco]

As usual you're awesome Clock ;). Thanks for the info I will surely wait a while for the new spec. Any info on it?
From wikipedia:


Serial ATA International Organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA_International_Organization) presented the draft specification of SATA 6 Gbit/s physical layer in July 2008,[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-11) and ratified its physical layer specification on August 18, 2008.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-12) The full 3.0 standard was released on May 27, 2009.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-13) While even the fastest conventional hard disk drives can barely saturate the original SATA 1.5 Gbit/s bandwidth, Solid State Disk drives are close to saturating the SATA 3 Gbit/s limit at 250 MB/s net read speed. Ten channels of fast flash can actually reach well over 500 MB/s with new ONFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_NAND_Flash_Interface_Working_Group) drives, so a move from SATA 3 Gbit/s to SATA 6 Gbit/s would benefit the flash read speeds. As for the standard hard disks, the reads from their built-in DRAM cache (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_buffer) will end up faster across the new interface.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-14)
The new specification contains the following changes:


A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications.
An NCQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCQ) Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands.
Improved power management capabilities.
A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices.
A connector designed to accommodate 7 mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks.
Alignment with the INCITS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INCITS) ATA8-ACS standard.

The enhancements are generally aimed at improving quality of service for video streaming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_streaming) and high priority interrupts. In addition, the standard continues to support distances up to a meter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter). The new speeds may require higher power consumption for supporting chips, factors that new process technologies and power management techniques are expected to mitigate. The new specification can use existing SATA cables and connectors, although some OEMs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_equipment_manufacturer) are expected to upgrade host connectors for the higher speeds.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-15) Also, the new standard is backwards compatible with SATA 3 Gbit/s.[17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-SATA-IO_website-16)
In order to avoid parallels to the common SATA II misnomer, the SATA-IO has compiled a set of marketing guidelines for the new specification. The specification should be called Serial ATA International Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.0, and the technology itself is to be referred to as SATA 6 Gbit/s. A product using this standard should be called the SATA 6 Gbit/s [product name]. The terms SATA III or SATA 3.0, which are considered to cause confusion among consumers, must not be used.[17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#cite_note-SATA-IO_website-16)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA


There's really no point in waiting unless you plan to start buying super fast SSDs before buying your next motherboard.
I'd just go with the sata controller card they're cheap anyways...
Less than $25 for a 4-port card.

[Detale]

I was looking at them today, but it's something else I know very little about could you recommend one Ross?

[Cabalo]

nice to see ya again mate!
i'd go for brightsid's suggestion. I've done the same myself a couple of weeks ago and bought one.
It does its job pretty well and it was a quite cheap solution, around 20€ and providing a e-sata..

[lynx]

Remember that neither a standard PCI slot nor a x1 PCI-E 1.0 slot have sufficient bandwidth to match the data rate of SATA-II.

That said, you probably wouldn't notice the difference with the PCI-E board unless you connect drives to all the ports and try to run them flat out simultaneously.

Of course, the sensible option in that case would be to move the slower optical drives to the add-in board in order to free up the built-in ports.

[tesco]

I was looking at them today, but it's something else I know very little about could you recommend one Ross?
I know very little about them as well so I can't recomend anything.
Only thing I can say is look for one that's PCI Express as long as you have pci-express ports free (It's pretty likely you do) since those are the only cards that seem to come in SATAII, not to mention they're similar price to the PCI ones anyway.

[Detale]

Thanks again Ross, I think thats the move for now ;) Oddly I don't have an extra PCI express slot only the 1X ones. My current board

GA-EP45-UD3R
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/3419/fff6f0095554993.jpg

[brightsid]

Never had a problem with Promises cards http://www.promise.com/product/pd_l3.asp?Product_Layer_ID=PRLA20060911010
Highpoint's product are also reliable(and exoensive) but I don't think you will have any problem with other cheaper ones

[lynx]

I picked these out as suitable for your motherboard.

2x internal SATA-II (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158097)
Internal SATA-II, e-SATA. Two ports, only one can be active. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158093)
1x internal SATA-II, 1x external SATA-II, 1x e-SATA. 3 ports, only one external port can be active. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815263007)
1x internal SATA-II, 1x e-SATA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815340010)
1x internal SATA-II, 1x e-SATA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158095)
2x internal SATA-II, 2x external SATA-II. 4 ports but only 2 active at once. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280008)

I suggest the 2x internal if there is a chance of yet another internal drive. Otherwise I suggest one of the 1x internal SATA-II, 1x e-SATA offerings. Can't comment on the reliability of any of these products though.