SATA pairing confusion by SHIKHAR

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Hi,
I am planning to buy an AMD 64 bit system, with MSI K8N Neo4 SLI as
base.

Now somebody told me that SATA hdds work only in pairs.
Is that true? Will I have to buy 2 SATA hdds or a single one will do?

Thank

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

<katekukku@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1116358187.324868.219710@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
> I am planning to buy an AMD 64 bit system, with MSI K8N Neo4 SLI as
> base.
>
> Now somebody told me that SATA hdds work only in pairs.
> Is that true? Will I have to buy 2 SATA hdds or a single one will do?
>
> Thank
>

That somebody's an idiot.

--
Derek

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

I don't have a lot to add to other posts, but...

SATA drives usually can be used singly. (I believe that the answer is
"always", but I don't know about every mainboard.)

"Somebody" was probably thinking of RAID. It is usually available with
controllers for SATA drives, and a pair of drives is required for the two
commonest forms of RAID (RAID 0, striping for performance, or RAID 1,
mirroring for data security). There is no requirement to use SATA drives in
RAID, though.

I'm not familiar with nForce4 boards, but you'll probably have to install
the RAID drivers for the onboard SATA controller (using F6), even if you
will not be using RAID. (This assumes that you're installing Windows XP.)

If you have time, study the manual, which may be available for download
(www.msi.com.tw). (I don't see one for the K8N Neo 4 SLI, but there is one
for the Neo 4 Platinum SLI.)

HTH.

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

<katekukku@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1116358187.324868.219710@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
> I am planning to buy an AMD 64 bit system, with MSI K8N Neo4 SLI as
> base.
>
> Now somebody told me that SATA hdds work only in pairs.
> Is that true? Will I have to buy 2 SATA hdds or a single one will do?
>
> Thank
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

<katekukku@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1116358187.324868.219710@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> I am planning to buy an AMD 64 bit system,
> with MSI K8N Neo4 SLI as base.

> Now somebody told me that SATA hdds work only in pairs.

> Is that true?

Nope.

> Will I have to buy 2 SATA hdds

Nope.

> or a single one will do?

Yep.

 

[george]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

FYI, I was able to use a SATA drive without the RAID drivers.

--George

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

That was certainly true on an Asus P4P800 board that I had (Intel 865PE
chipset), but can you install a non-RAID SATA drive on an nForce4 board
without additional drivers during the installation of XP?

(That's not a rhetorical question.)

<george@neosoft.com> wrote in message
news:1116449132.093406.132360@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> FYI, I was able to use a SATA drive without the RAID drivers.
>
> --George
>

 

[george]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Bob Knowlden wrote:
> That was certainly true on an Asus P4P800 board that I had (Intel
865PE
> chipset), but can you install a non-RAID SATA drive on an nForce4
board
> without additional drivers during the installation of XP?
>
> (That's not a rhetorical question.)

Bob,

My motherboard is a MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI. I started with a Maxtor
120GB SATA drive only. Windows XP Pro worked fine with it, and I did
not have to feed it any diskettes during the blue screen part of the
install. Later, I did install the nForce4 drivers, since this is
reported to improve performance, but it was not necessary to do so
SFAIK.

I have subsequently added a second Maxtor SATA 120GB drive, and am
using both as a RAID 1 'drive'. That *did* require me to feed the
nVidia RAID diskettes during the blue screen boot up, and I did have to
reformat my original drive (although, I don't know for certain if this
was absolutely necessary). SFAIK, it's working great so far (knock on
wood -smile-).

Best regards,

George

>
> <george@neosoft.com> wrote in message
> news:1116449132.093406.132360@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > FYI, I was able to use a SATA drive without the RAID drivers.
> >
> > --George
> >