Using 16x slots on SLI board for SATA controllers?

[davidj6]

Hello,

I am building a mass storage box. If I buy a nForce4 SLI motherboard, can I use both PCI Express x16 slots for SATA controllers?

(I will be using a very old PCI video card, or none at all if the system will boot without one.)

 

[Falloutboy]

umm yeah I'm sure you could but don't think anyone makes a 16xpci-e sata card and if they did it would be a very expensive workstation card.

 

[davidj6]

PCIe x1 cards fit in PCI x16 slots

The idea is that I can buy a cheap SLI board with 2 PCIe x16 slots and two PCIe x2 slots and use them for SATA controllers

 

[krotchy]

From what I have heard is some motherboards have issues putting non video cards into the first PCIe slot on an SLI motherboard. Its not an issue with all of them as far as I know though. I do know that the SLI32 boards seem to suffer from this issue much more often. However in theory you should be able to. In practice, I would plan to only have 3 PCIe slots availible. This should give you roughly 24 SATA lanes, which I would hope is enough . I suggest checking the forums at storagereview.com, they tend to know much more about RAID Controllers and whatnot.

 

[Peter]

In general, one can use "narrower" PCIE cards in "wider" slots. However, many chipsets limit the 16x slot to graphics use - and even with chipsets that don't, the BIOS still has to cope with a non-graphics device in there.