Question Are drive letters preserved if the drive's SATA port is changed?

knowledge2121

Distinguished
Sep 5, 2013
793
3
18,995
My OS drive is on a SATA3 500gb Samsung 850 EVO....

I also have a SATA3 Corsair 240gb...

If i plug the drives into different SATA3 ports on the motherboard, will the drive letters be preserved?
 
they should be the same but there were some old versions of intel storage drivers that had bugs and would re assign the drive letters in certain cases. also, some sata ports on some machines have special meanings and functions (mostly older machines and higher numbered ports)
 

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
But....why the change in SATA ports?

I can think of 2 reasons:
  • Neatness. E.g OS drive in SATA_0 port, data drive in SATA_1 port. While currently, they could be in random SATA ports. (Might be to do with cable management neatness as well.)
  • Possible NVMe in the future. On many MoBos, NVMe drive(s) will disable two SATA ports once installed. If OP has their SATA drive in one of those ports and in the future, when OP looks towards NVMe drive, they may run into this minor issue, where in use SATA port gets disabled.
 

knowledge2121

Distinguished
Sep 5, 2013
793
3
18,995
I can think of 2 reasons:
  • Neatness. E.g OS drive in SATA_0 port, data drive in SATA_1 port. While currently, they could be in random SATA ports. (Might be to do with cable management neatness as well.)
  • Possible NVMe in the future. On many MoBos, NVMe drive(s) will disable two SATA ports once installed. If OP has their SATA drive in one of those ports and in the future, when OP looks towards NVMe drive, they may run into this minor issue, where in use SATA port gets disabled.

Yes....if i use any sata port besides sata3_4 and sata3_5...then one of my m.2 slots will operate at x2 speeds...i am adding in 3 nvme x4s...
 

TRENDING THREADS