SATA drive limit??

LOANSHARK · August 27, 2016

Hi guys I am trying to install a SATA CD/DVD drive (yes I know there obsolete now but I have some old files on CD's and DVD's i want to get off) but when it' plugged in it doesn't show up in windows or bios yet the eject funtions fine. I already have 3 drives connected and was wondering if there is a limit with the SATA interface, mother board is MSI 970 gaming.

thanks

glitchmaster0001 · August 27, 2016

no there should be no limit, sounds like your dvd drive is dead to me

ARikozuM · August 27, 2016

17 minutes ago, LOANSHARK said:

Hi guys I am trying to install a SATA CD/DVD drive (yes I know there obsolete now but I have some old files on CD's and DVD's i want to get off) but when it' plugged in it doesn't show up in windows or bios yet the eject funtions fine. I already have 3 drives connected and was wondering if there is a limit with the SATA interface, mother board is MSI 970 gaming.

thanks

Go into Disk Management. Find the DVD-ROM and assign a letter.

Edit: The max I've ever mounted to a single computer was 35... And it was not cheap! It was only a thought to see possibilities but I guess more could be possible if your board has enough SAS and PCIe lanes available.

mariushm · August 27, 2016

Most likely the optical drive is dead, or the SATA cable is faulty, or the connector on the motherboard is heavily oxidized / dirty.

Check and see in Computer Management / Disk drives if the optical drive has a letter assigned to it. If the drive doesn't show up at all, turn off your PC and change the SATA cable with one of the SATA cables belonging to hard drives for a few minutes (that hard drive will be disconnected and won't show up in windows so don't disconnect the boot drive, and it's only a temporary measure but at least you get to see if the optical drive works)

And just connect the cable to another sata port if there's more than 4 sata connectors on your motherboard.

@ARikozuM : if you want full speed for each drive, you can buy sata controllers, there's various models that can handle up to 24 drives, like this one for example ($830 for 24 drives, or $34 for each port, not to mention you need to add the SAS to SATA cables ) : https://www.amazon.com/Areca-1284Ml-24-24-port-PCIe-Adapters/dp/B00E9CX5M0

There are much cheaper controllers that support 8-16 drives for something like $150-200, or somewhere around $10 for each sata port.

If actual speed for each drive is not a big issue, you can buy a cheaper sata controllers that is compatible with sata port multipliers and then spend some money on port multipliers, for example here's a 1xsata to 5 x sata multiplier for around $17 (or about 2.5$ per port) : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SATA-1-To-5-Port-converter-Adatper-SATA-Multiplier-Port-Card-SATAII-Riser-card-/281995213653?hash=item41a8397b55:g:hcIAAOSwjwlXBNFK

It basically acts like a switch, giving 300 MB/s of bandwidth from the one sata 2 port to five sata 2 ports. If you try to read from all 5 hard drives connected to it at the same time, naturally speed will be below 100 MB/s from each drive.

So what i'm trying to say is that your 35 hdd system could have been made possible with a motherboard that has at least 7 sata ports and supports port multipliers and $120 worth of sata multipliers.