Discussion The new ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace - too few SATA connectors?

[Kocicak]

This motherboard caught my eye, and then raised eyebrow and dissapointed by having just 4 SATA connectors.

I believe it would be practical if Asus made a second version of this board, which drops U.2 connector and brings a standard level of SATA connectivity.

 

[mmjjzz]

I would love that too

 

[UsandThem]

It's not really any different in that regard to the PRO WS-C246-ACE.

If someone needed more storage than the two M.2 slots, and 4 SATA connections, they could throw a cheap add-in SATA card.

 

[lopri]

But this board is a putative "Workstation" board with an absurd price tag.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Why are people needing so many sata ports?
4 ports sounds pretty reasonable to me

 

[UsandThem]

But this board is a putative "Workstation" board with an absurd price tag.

I agree they are absurdly priced, but I've personally found that a good majority of the X570 motherboards are priced pretty high.

I mean the ACE boards are built well and look sharp, but $380 is way too rich for my taste. I don't think I would ever pay more than $200 for a motherboard, with $150 being the most I've spent on one so far. I just need my motherboards to be stable. I don't 22-phase VRMs, plastic "armor", RGB, and all of the other gimmicky stuff that so many boards come with today.

 

[beginner99]

Why are people needing so many sata ports?
4 ports sounds pretty reasonable to me

I have 3 hdds (albeit I could theoretically drop one or now since I upgraded to a newer bigger one recently), the bluray drive which yeah I could probably also drop. Can't remember when I used that last time. Still good to have at least 1 such drive in the household. + 2 SATA SSDs. Yeah I could live with 4. Drop 1 hdd, 1 ssd and maybe even bluray drive. But why if I can get a cheaper board that has 6 or more SATA ports?

The main point of the thread is that is supposed to be a workstation board. Isn't it that far fetsched that such a pc could have many sata drives like for storing your final videos or photographs? Potentially in RAID?

 

[lopri]

Let's see. Say you have quite a few SATA SSDs lying around and are not yet comfortable with M.2's capacities or prices or reliability. You have 1 for OS drive, and 2 for RAID1 setup for data redundancy. That leaves you one more for your Steam folder and you are done.

Now, where do your VMs go? Virtual machines do not like sharing drives with other VMs, no matter what technology the drives are based on. What about emulation, maybe you are a developer and want to make sure your apps are compatible with as many Android versions. Want to have a discrete drive for your Android VMs? Fat chance. Or you just want to play around with your iDevices on Mac OS VM on your PC? Too bad go find a different board.

What about those "scratch disks" that I hear about from the graphics designers? Aren't those supposed to be separate volumes? Too bad you are not professional enough to use this board.

Or maybe you are encoding and transferring 4K footages via internal 10G network, and want to have a fast RAID0 volume. I am sure those are rather hot professions these days. Too bad this board is out of space. Get a RAID card for your RAID 0 array. Oh, and this board does not come with 10G ethernet (unlike other boards in the same price bracket) so you might as well get a 10G network card along with the RAID card. Oops, now you are almost running out of PCI-E slots, too!

And believe it or not DVDs and Blu-Rays are still around. You cannot download a movie of which quality matches the copy on Blu-Ray discs, and thumb drives are not durable enough to replace optical discs in certain, er, professional environments. This board may not accommodate such needs.

Not really a workstation board.

 

[Kocicak]

it is supposed to be a workstation board. Isn't it that far fetched that such a pc could have many sata drives like for storing your final videos or photographs? Potentially in RAID?

Exactly. Workstation means that you are working on something and that something needs to be stored somewhere.

4 SATA ports - 1 for optical drive is 3 usable SATA ports in a workstation board??? Makes no sense to me.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Why are people needing so many sata ports?
4 ports sounds pretty reasonable to me

Indeed. 4 SATA ports could potentially equal 40-64TB worth of storage. Or two 20-32TB RAID1's. I doubt anyone needs much more local storage these days.

Let's see. Say you have quite a few SATA SSDs lying around and are not yet comfortable with M.2's capacities or prices or reliability. You have 1 for OS drive, and 2 for RAID1 setup for data redundancy. That leaves you one more for your Steam folder and you are done.

Now, where do your VMs go? Virtual machines do not like sharing drives with other VMs, no matter what technology the drives are based on. What about emulation, maybe you are a developer and want to make sure your apps are compatible with as many Android versions. Want to have a discrete drive for your Android VMs? Fat chance. Or you just want to play around with your iDevices on Mac OS VM on your PC? Too bad go find a different board.

What about those "scratch disks" that I hear about from the graphics designers? Aren't those supposed to be separate volumes? Too bad you are not professional enough to use this board.

Or maybe you are encoding and transferring 4K footages via internal 10G network, and want to have a fast RAID0 volume. I am sure those are rather hot professions these days. Too bad this board is out of space. Get a RAID card for your RAID 0 array. Oh, and this board does not come with 10G ethernet (unlike other boards in the same price bracket) so you might as well get a 10G network card along with the RAID card. Oops, now you are almost running out of PCI-E slots, too!

The main point of the thread is that is supposed to be a workstation board. Isn't it that far fetsched that such a pc could have many sata drives like for storing your final videos or photographs? Potentially in RAID?

One reason for the lack of SATA ports on these sorts of boards would be the proliferation of NAS. Most professional outfits and businesses will have a separate storage system in place. Where it's easier to manage. So you don't really -need- that much local storage. Particularly with 10Gbit Ethernet in place.

SATA SSDs are on the way out, controller manufacturers have even stated they wont develop new controllers for the standard. Who can blame them? The SATA interface is pretty much maxed out, even with low-end drives.

I have 3 hdds (albeit I could theoretically drop one or now since I upgraded to a newer bigger one recently), the bluray drive which yeah I could probably also drop. Can't remember when I used that last time. Still good to have at least 1 such drive in the household. + 2 SATA SSDs. Yeah I could live with 4. Drop 1 hdd, 1 ssd and maybe even bluray drive. But why if I can get a cheaper board that has 6 or more SATA ports?

And believe it or not DVDs and Blu-Rays are still around. You cannot download a movie of which quality matches the copy on Blu-Ray discs, and thumb drives are not durable enough to replace optical discs in certain, er, professional environments. This board may not accommodate such needs.

Not really a workstation board.

With regards to opticals, they have their place. It's only amongst the entusiast community they're viewed as non-essential.

But most have moved to external USB ODD drives. You can even get external cases which can utilise regular 5.25" drives. Makes things far more flexible, since you can use the same drive amongst all your PCs.

 

[Micrornd]

2 NVMe drive slots, 4 SATA connectors, 1 U2 connector providing an additional 4 SATA OR 4 SAS drives for a total of 10 available drive connectors.
Where is the problem ?

 

[Kocicak]

U2 connector providing an additional 4 SATA drives

HOW? I searched but did not find any solution, adaptor cable etc.

 

[rsutoratosu]

You really want to use a 2019 board with drive speed from 2009 sata 6gb specs ?

Even with the dual nvme, I rather put a quad nvme in the pci bus than use a sata drive.

My workstation has quad nvme drives, 4 x 1tb

I have 1 spinner as "backup"

 

[Kocicak]

You really want to use a 2019 board with drive speed from 2009 sata 6gb specs?

Yes, of course!!!

Any cost effective lagre data volume storage uses SATA connector. Most "normal" SSDs are max. in 1 or 2 TB capacity and several times more expensive than traditional mechanical HDDs with SATA connector.

 

[Micrornd]

HOW? I searched but did not find any solution, adaptor cable etc.

No offense meant, but it sounds like you have no experience with WS boards, so why are you not looking boards aimed at consumers/gamers?

In answer to your question, the U2 connector used is a SFF-8643 (Mini-SAS HD) with NVMe support.
This gives you the option of using several cables-
SFF-8643 to NVMe SSD (SFF-8639)
SFF-8643 to 4 SATA
SFF-8643 to 4 SAS (SFF-8482)
SFF-8643 to Backplane connector - RAID or HDD enclosure (SFF-8087)

Plugging any of those description into Ebay, Amazon, etc., will bring up a usable cable.

 

[lopri]

This board also has an anemic rear I/O. I just don't see the value in comparison to other boarda in the same price range, including ASUS' own. (Crossfire IIIV Hero)

 

[rsutoratosu]

Yes, of course!!!

Any cost effective lagre data volume storage uses SATA connector. Most "normal" SSDs are max. in 1 or 2 TB capacity and several times more expensive than traditional mechanical HDDs with SATA connector.

You need something like this, 22 SATA ports
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87 Extreme11ac/

 

[Kocicak]

You need something like this, 22 SATA ports
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87 Extreme11ac/

Wow, THIS is a nice workstation motherboard!