SATA ports - How many are you using? I'm definitely using more than I used to.

[Golgatha]

I've got all 8 filled on my ASRock Z77 board.

2x480GB Sandisk Extreme II SSDs
2x1TB Western Digital RE4s with 1 240GB Crucial M500 SSD caching
2x2TB Samsung F4 data drives
1 DVD Burner Optical drive.

Since I can get 2 SSDs in either a 3.5in or 5.25in slot, I still have room for expansion if my board supported more SATA ports. At least I can quit spending money or SSDs since I can't put more in. I suppose the gradual move from IDE is partly to blame, but also since SSDs are cheaper in smaller capacities, I find myself buying more of them and using RAID 0 more than ever. Probably doesn't hurt that it's easy to move RAID arrays from one Intel chipset to the next without issues. Also, 8 IDE drives would be a cabling nightmare I don't even want to think about. SATA is so much easier in that regard. Anyway, I was just curious if others noticed the trend and are out of SATA ports too.

 

[tsupersonic]

4 Total (or 5):
3xSSD's: Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB, Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB, Intel 80 GB
1xHDD's: 1xWD Black

I do have an optical drive, but I unplugged it, since I don't use it ever. I should migrate the data off the WD Black onto the NAS, that way I will have no HDD's in the system! If only I found the time to do it...

 

[Deders]

5/6

Samsung 830 128
WD RE4 2TB
Samsung F3 1TB
WD Caviar Blue 640
DVD Writer

I also have a sata lead plugged in to the non Intel controller on my board for disk testing so that if any bad sectors are found it doesn't interfere with anything on the main controller.

Up until a month ago I still had an IDE drive plugged in to the IDE ports.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

How do we count port multipliers?

 

[Soundmanred]

13.
6 on the board and 2 four port cards.

 

[_Rick_]

I'm only using 13 currently. But only, because I still have 4 IDE devices running.

 

[ronbo613]

All of 'em. Eight mobo ports and two more on a PCI card. Two external hard drives on the two USB 3.0 ports to make sure the "No Vacancy" sign is always out.

I'd add more PCI cards but my case doesn't have room for any more drives.

 

[iluvdeal]

All 6 of my internal SATA ports are used up:

1. 256GB SSD Drive - OS/Apps

2. 1TB SATA Drive - Storage

3. 1TB SATA Drive - Backup

4. DVD Drive

5. Converted to eSATA port with one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812186179

6. Goes to 5.25 bay with Hot Swap 3.5" cage in it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215323

 

[master_shake_]

1, ssd that is it.

 

[Charlie98]

I used to have all 6 ports filled, now I only have 3... 1 SSD, 1 HDD, 1 DVD. Now, the external ports are a different story... I have all 6 filled, plus the PS/2, I even had to add a USB3.0 expansion card so I could run all my external drives.

 

[Morbus]

4:
1 optical drive
1 SSD
2 HDDs

 

[DrDoug]

A total of 14. Twelve sata and two IDE, all on mobo.

 

[john3850]

Main pc 3770k
1 optical
2 SSDs
2 HDDs

Wife pc
1 HDD
1 SSD
1 optical

 

[code65536]

Desktop, 5 ports total:
1x 256GB SSD, OS
1x 2TB HDD, Data
1x DVDRW
1x BDRW
1x case-mounted dock

Server, 6 ports total:
1x 240GB SSD, OS
1x 500GB 2.5" HDD, "staging" disk (place to record TV shows to and to download large chunks of data to before I move it to the array for permanent storage); allows for the array to remain idle and spun down most of the time
4x 4TB HDD, (12TB storage, 4TB storage), general data, NAS

 

[lehtv]

Five.

- SSD
- WD Green 1TB
- Samsung 2TB
- 2x WD Black 3TB

I also have a DVD drive but it's not connected.

 

[BFG10K]

5/6:

1. Samsung 830 128GB.
2. Crucial M500 960GB
3. 1TB WD Green.
4. LG Buray reader/DVD burner.
5. eSATA pass-through.

 

[ch33zw1z]

5/5, need more.

 

[Golgatha]

How do we count port multipliers?

With a huge lulz.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I strive for simplicity and balance every time I build a new system.

My Q6600 system had 4x320GB in RAID5, in addition to the optical drive and the vestigial 3.5" floppy now considered to be both obsolete and unnecessary. I think I spent over $350 on the 3Ware PCI-E RAID controller. Not only was the computer case too big for comfort: The entire system was heavy as a tank.

So now, in my 2+-year-old Sandy Bridge system, I have a 60GB SSD paired with a 600GB VelociRaptor in ISRT caching/acceleration. A second 500GB WD Black drive serves as workstation DVR storage. The first two drives are connected to the onboard Intel controller; the Black drive is connected to the onboard Marvell SATA controller.

Space on the accelerated VR HDD is less than 50% occupied. On the Black drive, it varies from 50% to 70% -- at which time I press the "green" button on my MS remote and choose to "archive" DVR-captures to my home server. And there are a lot of "serious" files stored and duplicated on the server that would otherwise consume space on the workstation.

That leaves the server. One SSD 60GB boot/system disk; four 1TB HDDs in a drive-pooling configuration -- with about 2.6TB of free space remaining.

So I only need three of eight SATA ports on my workstation. The server's six SATA (internal) ports are all occupied, since there's also a hot-swap drive bay that remains cabled for periodic use.

 

[Doomer]

Just ordered another IBM M1015 off eBay. 8 more SATA ports to play with, yay.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Desktop: 3 - SSD, HDD, optical drive
File server: 14 - SSD, 13 HDDs

 

[Demoralized]

3.... SSD, HDD and burner.