[SOLVED] How many drives can my motherboard support.

[iTRiP]

Hi, all.

I have never had more than 4 drives in my pc: SSD, HDD, HDD, SATA DVD.

So my question is how many more drives can my motherboard handle? I have a Gigabyte B460M D3H Rev1.0 Motherboard with F3 Bios.

 

[mdd1963]

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B460M-D3H-rev-10/sp#sp

You appear to have a pair of M.2 NVME/SATA ports, and, 6 SATA ports. (using SATA drives in m.2 slots might disable some SATA ports in some mainboards, consult your manual)

If that amount of drives is not sufficient, you have USB drives which may also be connected of course.

And, if desiring more, PCI-e slot M.2 adapters may be added, or, PCI-e RAID controllers allowing access to numerous more drives might be added....

 

[iTRiP]

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B460M-D3H-rev-10/sp#sp

You appear to have a pair of M.2 NVME/SATA ports, and, 6 SATA ports. (using SATA drives in m.2 slots might disable some SATA ports in some mainboards, consult your manual)

So that is the part I don't quite understand, the motherboard disables some SATA ports, How many m.2 and SATA can there then be connected?

I'm planning 1 x M.2 , 1xSATA SSD , 2x SATA HDD , 1 SATA DVD = that's five drives... will this configuration work and make all connected function at full speed.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

From what you said you were planning it should work fine.

 

[iTRiP]

OK, so loaded up the my motherboard webpage and I can now clearly see that only SATA port 5 and maybe SATA port 6 are going to not be unavailable if a M.2 drive or two are installed in my particular motherboard.

 

[lvt]

You also can add a lot more HDD/SSD using PCI-E to USB 3.0 adapter.

 

[iTRiP]

You also can add a lot more HDD/SSD using PCI-E to USB 3.0 adapter.

Ok. thanks for the info, they don't mention that in the manual, its good to know for future possible upgrades.

 

[faalin]

ok to clear things up

Your motherboard has 2 m.2 slots and 6 sata ports

If you install 2 m.2 pci-e drives then you dont loose any sata ports
If you install 2 m.2 sata drives then you loose sata port 5 on the board. Note that sata ports start at 0 and go up to 5, not 1 thru 6.

Only the M2M-SB port or m.2 port closest to the cpu shares bandwidth with sata port 5, so if you install a sata m.2 in the top m.2 slot is disables sata port 5. If you install a sata m.2 in the lower slot you will not loose any sata ports.


So if you only want to run sata drives you can use all 6 sata ports on the motherboard and a sata m.2 in the lower m.2 slot giving you 7 drives in total before using addin cards or usb drives.

If you want to use all 8 ports you would ether need 2 m.2 PCI-e drives or a combo of PCI-e and SATA putting the PCI-e in the top slot and SATA in the lower. Then populating all 6 sata ports

 

[Burigeller]

ok to clear things up

Your motherboard has 2 m.2 slots and 6 sata ports

If you install 2 m.2 pci-e drives then you dont loose any sata ports
If you install 2 m.2 sata drives then you loose sata port 5 on the board. Note that sata ports start at 0 and go up to 5, not 1 thru 6.

Only the M2M-SB port or m.2 port closest to the cpu shares bandwidth with sata port 5, so if you install a sata m.2 in the top m.2 slot is disables sata port 5. If you install a sata m.2 in the lower slot you will not loose any sata ports.


So if you only want to run sata drives you can use all 6 sata ports on the motherboard and a sata m.2 in the lower m.2 slot giving you 7 drives in total before using addin cards or usb drives.

If you want to use all 8 ports you would ether need 2 m.2 PCI-e drives or a combo of PCI-e and SATA putting the PCI-e in the top slot and SATA in the lower. Then populating all 6 sata ports

All in all sounds correct but i think you're wrong on the part where you say that the m.2 slot closer to the mainboard has shared lanes. Usually the lowest one shares lanes with Sata port 4&5. I didn't particularly look it up for the mainboard in this thread but i think all should be the same.

 

[iTRiP]

Ok, well understood, thanks for your input on this matter.

 

[faalin]

All in all sounds correct but i think you're wrong on the part where you say that the m.2 slot closer to the mainboard has shared lanes. Usually the lowest one shares lanes with Sata port 4&5. I didn't particularly look it up for the mainboard in this thread but i think all should be the same.

By the way Burigeller you are wrong and it pays to read the manual top of page 16.

InstallationNoticesfortheM.2andSATAConnectors:
The availability of the SATA connectors may be affected by the type of device installed in the M.2 sockets. The M2M_SB connector shares bandwidth with the SATA3 5 connector. Refer to the following table for details.

If you look at a photo of the motherboard the M2M_SB slot is right under the cpu. M2P_SB slot is right under the PCIEx16 slot for the GPU.

So the top M.2 slot is linked to SATA port 5 and only disables it if you install a SATA M.2

 

[Burigeller]

By the way Burigeller you are wrong and it pays to read the manual top of page 16.

InstallationNoticesfortheM.2andSATAConnectors:
The availability of the SATA connectors may be affected by the type of device installed in the M.2 sockets. The M2M_SB connector shares bandwidth with the SATA3 5 connector. Refer to the following table for details.

If you look at a photo of the motherboard the M2M_SB slot is right under the cpu. M2P_SB slot is right under the PCIEx16 slot for the GPU.

So the top M.2 slot is linked to SATA port 5 and only disables it if you install a SATA M.2

I looked up the manual and you're right. Seems like it differs from mobo to mobo. My bad, thanks for the info!