How many drives does SATA support?

[omega2]

How many drives can a single SATA controller support? I can't find any info that mentions this.

Thanks.

 

[SocrPlyr]

as many drives as the manufacturer of the controller wants it to...
Howerver, the each channel (each cable) is limited to one device. the ICH5 supports 2 channels and most addin cards support 2 or 4 channels. also most motherboards have 2 channels.

there is research being done to possibly have multiple devices on the same channel in the next iterations of serial ata.

Josh

 

[techfuzz]

Serial ATA can support up to 128 devices per channel (vs. two for ATA and 15 for SCSI) and extends the maximum supported cable length from 18 inches to 1 meter.

- Computer World

techfuzz

 

[SocrPlyr]

Cabling?Serial ATA specifies a thin, point-to-point connection which allows for easy cable routing within a system. This avoids master/slave, "daisy-chaining", and termination issues. Also, better airflow can be realized compared to systems with wider ribbon cables.

http://www.serialata.org/about/index.shtml

how are you going to get 128 devices on that?

Josh

 

[Intelman07]

Oh this is quite odd two differen't sources two differen't stories. I think it is only one drive per cable look at the cable! It had two ends one to the drive one to the motherboard.

 

[IanthePez]

Currently it's only one per channel.

In the future you will be able to daisy chain a lot together. Just have to wait for the drives and cards to support it.

 

[SocrPlyr]

Originally posted by: SocrPlyr
as many drives as the manufacturer of the controller wants it to...
Howerver, the each channel (each cable) is limited to one device. the ICH5 supports 2 channels and most addin cards support 2 or 4 channels. also most motherboards have 2 channels.

there is research being done to possibly have multiple devices on the same channel in the next iterations of serial ata.

Josh

didn't i hint at that?

Josh