Question No free SATA ports left, what are my options ?

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Gtech34

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Jan 22, 2014
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Hello,
I have Asus Z97-P, It has 4 SATA connections and all of them are occupied.
Is there any way I can add another HDD to this setup and can I just remove current HDDs without losing all the data on it?
Thanks
 
M.2 yes.

M.2 SATA maybe.

M.2 NVMe maybe.

Either SATA or NVMe maybe.

You'd have to look at your motherboard manual to see exactly what type of M.2 drive can be used.

I suspect that motherboard is relatively old, so you may be restricted to SATA M.2 as you suspect.
 
If you don't want to buy new higher capacity hard disks and transfer the contents of several smaller (older) drives across, you can install as many hard disks as your computer case will hold. When you run out of motherboard SATA ports, fit a PCIe controller card.

You can disconnect and remove hard disks (and store them in ESD bags) for as long as you like (within reason) then reconnect them to access the data. Alternatively, just leave the drives running in the computer.

I have a couple of Lian Li V2000 cases with room for twelve 3.5in drives each in separate compartments below the motherboard area. When I run out of room on a hard disk, I install another one.

I have 8 SAS hard disks running on an LSI controller card in TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2 system, with two more drives for different OS.

It's not a bad idea to upgrade your system with new storage drives every now and then. Hard drives and SSDs can drop dead at any time. Don't trust all your data to one big drive. Make regular backups on other media.
 
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Misgar said:
If you don't want to buy new higher capacity hard disks and transfer the contents of several smaller (older) drives across, you can install as many hard disks as your computer case will hold. When you run out of motherboard SATA ports, fit a PCIe controller card.

You can disconnect and remove hard disks (and store them in ESD bags) for as long as you like (within reason) then reconnect them to access the data. Alternatively, just leave the drives running in the computer.

I have a couple of Lian Li V2000 cases with room for twelve 3.5in drives each in separate compartments below the motherboard area. When I run out of room on a hard disk, I install another one.

I have 8 SAS hard disks running on an LSI controller card in TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2 system, with two more drives for different OS.

It's not a bad idea to upgrade your system with new storage drives every now and then. Hard drives and SSDs can drop dead at any time. Don't trust all your data to one big drive. Make regular backups on other media.
Click to expand...
If you can remove and reconnect HDD without losing any data on it, then it's super easy to store data off the system and connect it or swap drives when you need to access data.
Creating backup is also important, thanks for noting it, I should do it one day.
I am not familiar with RAID configurations but i want to learn more about them.
 
Don't worry about RAID unless you just like messing around and have collected a few more disks and suitable controller card.

Instead, backup your data ASAP.

As other people will warn, if you only have one copy of your data and disaster strikes, you'll miss those irreplaceable photos and home videos.
 
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