ASUS Maximus Forumula III SATA Port Question

[orbster556]

Hello:

I have a quick question concerning the use of some of the SATA ports on my Maximus Formula III; the ports on the board are as follow:

6 xSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10 JMicron® 322 controller and 2 x JMicron® 363 controllers:
- 2 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s port (Red) supporting Hardware RAID 0 and 1 (SPD_HDD1 + SPD_HDD2)
- 1 x External SATA 3.0 Gb/s port (SATA On-the-Go)
- 2 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s port (White) - SATA_ODD1 + SATA_ODD2

I have used the 6 regular SATA ports and also have one optical disk connected through one of the ports reserved for optical drives.

My question is whether I can connect another HDD using the specially designated ports without incident. Reading through the manual, it indicates that the white ports are for optical drives while the 2 red ports are to be used if you want to create Hardware RAID.

I am unsure whether using these slots, in light of their designation for optical disks and RAID arrays, respectively, would be permissible.

Thank you, in advance, for any help or insight you might be able to provide.

Regards,

 

[Puppies04]

Plugging a HDD into the red port should be fine, it is advertised as "supporting" raid not being exclusively for that purpose.