March 25, 200917 yr Guys I was just going over the MB List : http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#Hardware_Reported_to_Work and was wondering if any of these had all there onboard SATA controllers on the PCI-E bust instead of the PCI bus? Correct me if I am wrong, but can the GIGe Nic card alone saturate the PCI BUS? So add a few drivers with Parity also running on the PCI bus, and you hit a bottleneck. Any recommendations for boards with 8+ sata controllers on PCI-E bus, as well as the NIC on the PCI-E bus?
March 26, 200917 yr All recent Intel ICH* and AMD SB* southbridges are "full speed" and not using the pci bus. Most manuals have a schematic map that show what all the components are connected to. Additional ports beyond the 6 that those southbridges support are typically attached to a PCI-Express lane. Download the pdf manual of boards you're interested in and look for the map near the start. I'm not aware of any inexpensive 8 port boards at this time. Sadly we've regressed, there was a better selection in the past.
March 27, 200917 yr From what I understand, I have to agree with Romir. I think most modern SATA ports are supported directly by the bridge chipsets, do not use either the PCI or PCIe busses. I think you were misled by an untrained support person. Correct me if I am wrong, but can the GIGe Nic card alone saturate the PCI BUS? It shouldn't on a modern board. I have a Pentium III system, and a Gig NIC card does saturate mine, but that is pretty old, with an older and slower PCI version. I do agree though, that it can impact drive performance, if drives are also on the PCI bus.
March 29, 200917 yr Author I will see if I can find the motherboard layout somewhere. I think the ASUS p5Q Premium would be an awesome board then if this is the case with 10 SATA drives to start... I'll post it if I can find it.
March 29, 200917 yr Look here It is in Russian or something, but if you scroll down a little ways there is a block diagram for the chipset in English. There appears to be no PCI bus AT ALL. All is on PCI-e.
April 8, 200917 yr Author Awesome! Thanks. I will probably by the deluxe version. The Premium version is a little pricey for 4 more sata and 2 more nics.
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