SATA drives: how may can get used together

[Z Man]

This should have been easy to find out, but thus far I have been
unsuccessful. I am interested in building a computer with at least 4@400GB
drives, for a total of 1.6TB. This machine will be used for my home theatre,
and will be primarily to store DVD's. Each DVD takes up about 8GB, so I will
be able to store 200 DVD's. Now for the questions...how many SATA drives can
be used at the same time? Does it depend on the number of motherboard
connectors? Can they be daisy chained? I am a veteran of SCSI, but have not
worked extensively with SATA. How about cable length? How long can my SATA
cables be? Are SATA drives more noisy than others? I would like it to be as
quiet as possible, since this is a home theatre application.

I am also considering the Lacie 1.6TB disk, which costs just under $1,300. I
can purchase 400GB drives for just over $250/drive. The Lacie can use
Firewire 400/800, or USB2. Would the SATA drives be faster if mounted
internally and attached to the SATA motherboard connectors, compared to
Firewire 400, 800 or USB2? Thanks in advance for an advise.

 

[Rod Speed]

This should have been easy to find out, but thus far I have been
unsuccessful. I am interested in building a computer with at least
4@400GB drives, for a total of 1.6TB. This machine will be used for my home
theatre, and will be primarily to store DVD's. Each DVD takes up about 8GB, so
I will be able to store 200 DVD's. Now for the
questions...how many SATA drives can be used at the same time?

There is no hard limit.

Does it depend on the number of motherboard connectors?

Nope, only initially. You can add more on PCI cards if you want.

Can they be daisy chained?
Nope.

I am a veteran of SCSI, but have not worked extensively with SATA. How about
cable length? How long can my SATA cables be?

1 meter

Are SATA drives more noisy than others?

Nope, noise has nothing to do with the interface standard.

I would like it to be as quiet as possible, since this is a home theatre
application.

I like the Samsungs for that, but currently they are a max of 250G.

I am also considering the Lacie 1.6TB disk, which costs just under
$1,300. I can purchase 400GB drives for just over $250/drive. The
Lacie can use Firewire 400/800, or USB2. Would the SATA drives be
faster if mounted internally and attached to the SATA motherboard
connectors, compared to Firewire 400, 800 or USB2?

Yes, but the difference isnt great

 

[Arno Wagner]

This should have been easy to find out, but thus far I have been
unsuccessful. I am interested in building a computer with at least 4@400GB
drives, for a total of 1.6TB. This machine will be used for my home theatre,
and will be primarily to store DVD's. Each DVD takes up about 8GB, so I will
be able to store 200 DVD's. Now for the questions...how many SATA drives can
be used at the same time? Does it depend on the number of motherboard
connectors? Can they be daisy chained? I am a veteran of SCSI, but have not
worked extensively with SATA. How about cable length? How long can my SATA
cables be? Are SATA drives more noisy than others? I would like it to be as
quiet as possible, since this is a home theatre application.

I am also considering the Lacie 1.6TB disk, which costs just under $1,300. I
can purchase 400GB drives for just over $250/drive. The Lacie can use
Firewire 400/800, or USB2. Would the SATA drives be faster if mounted
internally and attached to the SATA motherboard connectors, compared to
Firewire 400, 800 or USB2? Thanks in advance for an advise.

I have 8 * 250 GB SATA disks on two Promise TX4 PCI controllers in a
server. The same server has an additional 4 * 400GB IDE drives, all
with Linux software RAID. I see no reason why I could not add more
disks, except for space and power considerations.

You may run into OS limits though with a higher number of drives,
but 4 should not be an issue. Take care however that a JBOD
or RAID0 with 4 drives will be massively more at risk from disk
failure than a single disk. Maybe you should use 5 Drives in a
RAID5 and have at least one spare disk handy.

Arno

 

[Eric Gisin]

The fastest external solution is eSATA, not USB2/1394.
You should get 150MB/s or more over a single cable.

You need a 4-5 drive case, port multiplier board, various cables,
and a system with full SATA II support. Here is the PM board:
http://www.cooldrives.com/cosapomubrso.html

 

[dg]

I like the Samsungs for that, but currently they are a max of 250G.

Samsung hard drives, who would have thought they would be as good as they
are. I was quite skeptical of them when they were introduced but apparently
they are doing quite well. I use 1 of the 160GB Samsungs myself, and I know
several others who are using them quite happily. Low noise, low heat, and
so far no dead drives. Its one of those things I expected to fail miserably
right off the bat.

--Dan

 

[dg]

The fastest external solution is eSATA, not USB2/1394.
You should get 150MB/s or more over a single cable.

You need a 4-5 drive case, port multiplier board, various cables,
and a system with full SATA II support. Here is the PM board:
http://www.cooldrives.com/cosapomubrso.html

That thing is sweet, I've never seen one before. Its one of those gadgets
that I want to build something with just because I can.

--Dan