Advice on upgrading please (Chipset info needed i think)

[Jim]

Right now i have an Asus P5E3 Premium (X48 chipset) with alll sata ports
taken up by a DVD Burner and SATA hard drives plus i have an Adaptec
RAID 1430SA again all it's sockets are being taken up for SATA hard
drives (yes it's a big case) plus i have an Asus U3S6 which is being
used for it's USB3 ports.
What i'm considering doing is upgrading the motherboard/cpu/ram to give
me at least 4 USB3 sockets (on the motherboard itself) and a decent
amount of SATA sockets to cover as many hard drives as possible, i think
i'll still need some form of extra SATA sockets via Adaptec RAID 1430SA
(or something on those lines) now i'm far from a chipset expert but the
reason i went for X48 chipset was the fact that 2 of my lanes could run
at x16 one was for graphics and the other was for the Adaptec RAID
1430SA or the Asus U3S6 (i can't remember what sorry) right now i have
video card (Asus EAH6450) in PCIE16x1, Asus U3S6 in PCIE16x2 and Adaptec
RAID 1430SA in PCIE16x.

Now from my understanding Intel had no support for usb3 last time i
looked but it was on the board by nec etc, so can anyone shed any light
on what chipset i should be looking for, as i say usb3x4, and decent
amount of sata ports, to be honest i don't think i'm after anything else
that is ot standard nowadays, i'm not into overclocking reliability over
speed for me.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Jim

 

[Flasherly]

Right now i have an Asus P5E3 Premium (X48 chipset) with alll sata ports
taken up by a DVD Burner and SATA hard drives plus i have an Adaptec
RAID 1430SA again all it's sockets are being taken up for SATA hard
drives (yes it's a big case) plus i have an Asus U3S6 which is being
used for it's USB3 ports.
What i'm considering doing is upgrading the motherboard/cpu/ram to give
me at least 4 USB3 sockets (on the motherboard itself) and a decent
amount of SATA sockets to cover as many hard drives as possible, i think
i'll still need some form of extra SATA sockets via Adaptec RAID 1430SA
(or something on those lines) now i'm far from a chipset expert but the
reason i went for X48 chipset was the fact that 2 of my lanes could run
at x16 one was for graphics and the other was for the Adaptec RAID
1430SA or the Asus U3S6 (i can't remember what sorry) right now i have
video card (Asus EAH6450) in PCIE16x1, Asus U3S6 in PCIE16x2 and Adaptec
RAID 1430SA in PCIE16x.

Now from my understanding Intel had no support for usb3 last time i
looked but it was on the board by nec etc, so can anyone shed any light
on what chipset i should be looking for, as i say usb3x4, and decent
amount of sata ports, to be honest i don't think i'm after anything else
that is ot standard nowadays, i'm not into overclocking reliability over
speed for me.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Jim

There's different stuff - VIA, NEC - differing opinions with some
reporting success. **Still, not especially a pretty picture. Four
and four, SATA/USB, is what might be expected on a garden variety MB
(discounting a couple MB blocks for front USB case connectors). Your
board apparently has six SATA connectors. Could be a factor of 1/10th
the price of $200 MBs if also able to get home with the bacon via a
card. Newer technology, though, so no getting around an eye for
attention to caveats. There's a couple midrange reviewed boards in
there, though. Might want to compare them overall for all USB3
boards, looking specifically for factors to compare on a well-received
board.

An approach. I might not be worrying about USB3 until the muck clears
or running into a problem about not getting functional USB2 (if ever -
bought a mini-lookalike $10 patton fan from wallymart to run anything
extended, storage wise, from a USB2 docking station, sans E-SATA
connectors).

**
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=100

 

[Paul]

Right now i have an Asus P5E3 Premium (X48 chipset) with alll sata ports
taken up by a DVD Burner and SATA hard drives plus i have an Adaptec
RAID 1430SA again all it's sockets are being taken up for SATA hard
drives (yes it's a big case) plus i have an Asus U3S6 which is being
used for it's USB3 ports.
What i'm considering doing is upgrading the motherboard/cpu/ram to give
me at least 4 USB3 sockets (on the motherboard itself) and a decent
amount of SATA sockets to cover as many hard drives as possible, i think
i'll still need some form of extra SATA sockets via Adaptec RAID 1430SA
(or something on those lines) now i'm far from a chipset expert but the
reason i went for X48 chipset was the fact that 2 of my lanes could run
at x16 one was for graphics and the other was for the Adaptec RAID
1430SA or the Asus U3S6 (i can't remember what sorry) right now i have
video card (Asus EAH6450) in PCIE16x1, Asus U3S6 in PCIE16x2 and Adaptec
RAID 1430SA in PCIE16x.

Now from my understanding Intel had no support for usb3 last time i
looked but it was on the board by nec etc, so can anyone shed any light
on what chipset i should be looking for, as i say usb3x4, and decent
amount of sata ports, to be honest i don't think i'm after anything else
that is ot standard nowadays, i'm not into overclocking reliability over
speed for me.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Jim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_chipsets

Z77 = (4) USB3, (10) USB2 (many will be on internal headers)
(2) SATA III, (4) SATA II
LGA1155
Probably 2x8 or 1x16 for two video slots, plus
another 8 lanes smeared around for peripheral chips
or x1 slots. Maybe some boards would offer a third, x4 slot
using that, depending on how many lanes don't get used.

X79 for LGA2011 has no USB3 native, and the same SATA mix.
LGA2011 has more total PCI Express lanes to work with,
for motherboards having more video card quality slots.
And, the processor cost more for it.

That doesn't stop someone from slapping a four port USB3
add-on chip, onto an LGA2011 motherboard. While the initial
chips were two port, there are some now which have four ports.
That doesn't mean the chip design is necessarily a good idea,
just that "port hungry" customers will have more connectors
to play with. The bus connection on that thing, still has
limits.

For LGA1155 with the basic x16 slot coming straight from
the processor pins, that can be split as two x8. And if
a manufacturer wanted, they could use a switch chip, to
dice that up, and make more mid-bandwidth slots.

This is a relatively popular Z77, with two video slots
(x8 each, if you're using both).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

It uses the Southbridge for (4) USB3, and an Asmedia 1042 two
port for two more USB3.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5793/...-with-ivy-bridge-asrock-asus-gigabyte-and-msi

But if you go through that list of chipset, you'll get some
idea how limiting the starting materials are.

Seeing as the box is mainly about storage, you could get
a Z77, then slap an Areca card in it, which offers
as many as 24 SATA connectors. But the pricing is quite
steep. The card has processing of its own, which is
part of the reason. I've never understood why there
aren't more "plain jane" storage cards with say,
a handful of Marvell multiport chips. You could
easily make a non-RAID card with the connector count of
the Areca, but perhaps with a price around $200 or so.
There would be no acceleration, and the main processor
would do all the work of setting up DMA transfers.

Paul