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November 20th, 2017 23:00
Best SATA controller for Aurora R4, Windows 10
Need advice on a good x-16 PCI-Express SATA card
I'm a photographer with high resolution images that take up a lot of space. I have two SSDs, one for the C: drive and OS, the other for app binaries and personal data (like Word documents). Then two spinning drives, 4 & 5 TB, that are nearly full. I want to add some more big drives and need a second SATA controller.Two slot are taken up by the video card (one used, one covered) and the second x1 is used for a USB3.0 expansion card. The remaining slot is x16.
I see a proliferation of further standards in both PCI and SATA. I want a card that's rock solid with the least problems even if it's a little slow. I don't want or need RAID.
Cass-Ole
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November 22nd, 2017 06:00
Don't know, haven't needed one yet, wait for a better reply. My R4 has a DVD drive & two DVD 'blanks', the blanks leave a pair of 5.25" bays open inside; notice as you pop a blank out that they're essentially HDD holders. In the photo below, a pair of drives (a pair of SSDs also, if using SSD caddy) could fit there. I keep one drive in a blank, but haven't photo'd it
Essentially, the x6 mthrbrd SATA port headers, you get x4 lower SATA ports for boot drives, x2 upper SATA ports for non-boot items like a pair of DVD drives for instance. Most computers would've come with a pair of short SATA cables for those optical drives (if not then buy a SATA3 data cable). Imagine a scenario where a DVD drive is fully absent or only one is in use, that 'frees up' one or both top SATA ports / cables. From there, you can install one or two HDDs in those empty bays. You can't boot from them I don't think but you can certainly use as a 5th & 6th storage drive(s)
The blanks are not perfect, typically only one screw (sometimes two) will fit to secure an HDD down (while the remainder of screw holes by a fraction fail to line up), I find that one screw is enough. As a test, take a drive out & try it in one of your blanks (blanks eject by using the white lever & push from behind to slide it out). Hook a SATA power/data cable to it & try to access it on next power up. Obviously your x4 MAIN drives sit in the bottom of case as normal & run off of the superior SATA controller, a 5th or 6th drive can linger up in the DVD bay using the basic SATA sub-controller; as I said , give it a test, try to write DATA through the upper SATA port(s) til you find the PCI-Ex card you're looking for (ie purchase new drive now & use it, buy expansion SATA card later after u find the right one)
If you've a pair of DVD drives up there in use + one blank, a 5th drive can still go in, where u manually connect or disconnect SATA Power/Data cables to it as needed. I assume you've already solved the mystery of where to place any new drives, so I'm suggesting you can today use one or both top 'DVD SATA ports' to read / write data to a drive with, expansion card can come later
It's likely you know already a drive or two is going up there, so do a test
Below, my A-51's storing a drive #7 in the unused bottom bay; I manually hook up power + DATA cable when needed, running off of the sub-controller that's normally reserved for DVDs etc, same scenario, I happened to have these photos w/a drive installed in the DVD blank so you can see the concept