Budget Server SATA Issue?

[Aavex]

Greetings fellow computer builders,

 

I am planning on building my home a home server using Windows Home Server following the guide Linus Sebastian made on NCIX. The problem with this is my father may have small drives but a lot of them. As this is a budget build I am afraid the number of SATA ports on my Gigabate GA-H81M-H (2 Sata 3.0 Ports) will not allow for this.

 

The question:

 

Can I connect multiple drives to the same SATA port using a Y cable of some sort?

 

Can I use a pcie raid card to expand the number of ports. Please supply cons and pros of using this, and if this is a possible solution please list a couple options.

 

Best Regards.

 

Aditya Diwakar

 

P.S: I am willing to change my motherboard if need be. Socket is: LGA 1150 with CPU Type of H81 (Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition)

[Kherm]

In regards to the Y adapter for SATA data, that won't work.

[Aavex]

In regards to the Y adapter for SATA data, that won't work.

 

Thank you!

[Max_Hughes]

If you dont have your parts yet you could look for a motherboard with more SATA ports on it.

ASRock to a great one with intergrated 4 or 8 core Averton CPU which also has 12 SATA ports on it. It can also be accessed remote over the network with IPMI. Both Linus and TekSyndicate have reviewed it and would be great for a home server. There are also lots of other boards out there with plenty of SATA ports.

 

If you already have the motherboard then get something like a HBA card. This will give you extra SATA ports to connect drives and is usually cheaper than a RAID card which you could also use.

 

It all depends on what parts you already have, how much you want to spend and what features you want to be using.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Aavex,

 

As @Kherm suggested, multiple drives typically can't be used on the same port. You can, however, check out the "Port Multiplier" option which can give you some solutions in your case. There are a number of ups and downs such as more drives on the same port but lowered transfer speed cap. Here's some more info on this: https://www.sata-io.org/port-multipliers

Another thing would be getting a PCI RAID card which will add more SATA ports to your motherboard as well as a stable RAID support and full bandwidth to all drives and their ports. А Pro will be that you will have more ports and each drives should work at its full potential while a Con would be that this takes up a PCI port which you might need. 

 

One recommendation from me: If you are reusing old drives do make sure to check their health before trusting your data to them Checking the drives' S.M.A.R.T. statuses with the tool provided by the manufacturers of the drives should be enough. 

 

Feel free to ask if you have other questions

 

Captain_WD.

[Aavex]

 

Hey there Aavex,

 

As @Kherm suggested, multiple drives typically can't be used on the same port. You can, however, check out the "Port Multiplier" option which can give you some solutions in your case. There are a number of ups and downs such as more drives on the same port but lowered transfer speed cap. Here's some more info on this: https://www.sata-io.org/port-multipliers

Another thing would be getting a PCI RAID card which will add more SATA ports to your motherboard as well as a stable RAID support and full bandwidth to all drives and their ports. А Pro will be that you will have more ports and each drives should work at its full potential while a Con would be that this takes up a PCI port which you might need. 

 

One recommendation from me: If you are reusing old drives do make sure to check their health before trusting your data to them Checking the drives' S.M.A.R.T. statuses with the tool provided by the manufacturers of the drives should be enough. 

 

Feel free to ask if you have other questions

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Thank you for the thorough answer, I am using on board graphics since this is a data server so I will use a port multiplier! Thanks!