how many SATA ports maximum ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ken Verdrom
  • Start date Start date
K

Ken Verdrom

Hi,

I just got myself a new PC wich has 2 SATA ports on the motherboard.

* Which kept me wondering : how many SATA ports can a PC actually have
maximum ?
* Suppose I add additional ports (using a PCI-card), how many could I add
that way before running in trouble (because of IRQ's, performance or any
other reason)

Ken.
 
Ken said:
Hi,

I just got myself a new PC wich has 2 SATA ports on the motherboard.

* Which kept me wondering : how many SATA ports can a PC actually have
maximum ?
* Suppose I add additional ports (using a PCI-card), how many could I add
that way before running in trouble (because of IRQ's, performance or any
other reason)
Click to expand...

In principle using a 24-slot backplane and 3Ware's highest-capacity host
adapters you could go over 200 (depending on what else you plug into that
backplane--the CPU's going to take one slot, the video another, and you'll
probably want some I/O).

In practice though the PCI bus is going to be the performance limit with
large numbers of drives and that may start becoming a bottleneck with as
few as 4 drives depending on usage patterns--how many you can install
before you hit a limit isn't something that anyone can calculate without a
_lot_ more information, and even then the calculation would be a fairly
rough estimate.
 
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