Here's the situation:
I got an ASUS RoG Maximus XII Formula (mobo), which has 3x M2 slots and 6x SATA3 ports.
Now, I've plugged two M2 SSDs in the first two slots, but to make them work at top speed (4x) I had to sacrifice the PCIEx socket and the SATA ports number 5 and 6. Fine by me.
Next I've plugged in two HDDs to make a RAID_1 volume.
This has left me with only two more SATA ports to use.
One of the two left SATA ports is taken by a 500GB SSD, while the other....
I wanted to use the last one for a 1TB HDD that would work as a temporary repository for downloads and as Windows' temp files dumpster.
But!!
I've used the last SATA port for a DVD drive (I know, they're becoming obsolete, but I still got games on DVD!), and now I don't know how to plug the 1TB HDD in!!
I got a couple of options, in mind:
A) Move one of the M2 SSDs to the third slot, which taps onto the 3rd PCIEx 16x slot (never gonna use it!).
This poses a number of problems, first of all that it's on the back of the motherboard. There's very little room left for anything, back there, which excludes any heatsink (looking at you, Force MP600 480GB!!).
True, the Force MP510 240GB comes with no heatsink, but the motherboard kindly supplies one for the front slots.
But would it be wise to move the MP510 to the back of the motherboard, leaving it with no heatsink and no ventilation, so to free up the last two SATA ports?
B) Leaving the DVD drive inside the case, while tracing a USB3-to-SATA data cable from one of the back panel's ports and directly supplying it with power from the PSU.
This would be almost good, but not so elegant.
So I thought, maybe I could make use of one of the internal USB3 sockets to plug the DVD's data line in. But how?!
Is there any cable that allows this kind of connection?
A cable that directly translates into a SATA connector would be great, but even just a USB female connector would still help. I think....?
Also, any cable that translates USB to SATA, but leaves the power supply out?
I got an ASUS RoG Maximus XII Formula (mobo), which has 3x M2 slots and 6x SATA3 ports.
Now, I've plugged two M2 SSDs in the first two slots, but to make them work at top speed (4x) I had to sacrifice the PCIEx socket and the SATA ports number 5 and 6. Fine by me.
Next I've plugged in two HDDs to make a RAID_1 volume.
This has left me with only two more SATA ports to use.
One of the two left SATA ports is taken by a 500GB SSD, while the other....
I wanted to use the last one for a 1TB HDD that would work as a temporary repository for downloads and as Windows' temp files dumpster.
But!!
I've used the last SATA port for a DVD drive (I know, they're becoming obsolete, but I still got games on DVD!), and now I don't know how to plug the 1TB HDD in!!
I got a couple of options, in mind:
A) Move one of the M2 SSDs to the third slot, which taps onto the 3rd PCIEx 16x slot (never gonna use it!).
This poses a number of problems, first of all that it's on the back of the motherboard. There's very little room left for anything, back there, which excludes any heatsink (looking at you, Force MP600 480GB!!).
True, the Force MP510 240GB comes with no heatsink, but the motherboard kindly supplies one for the front slots.
But would it be wise to move the MP510 to the back of the motherboard, leaving it with no heatsink and no ventilation, so to free up the last two SATA ports?
B) Leaving the DVD drive inside the case, while tracing a USB3-to-SATA data cable from one of the back panel's ports and directly supplying it with power from the PSU.
This would be almost good, but not so elegant.
So I thought, maybe I could make use of one of the internal USB3 sockets to plug the DVD's data line in. But how?!
Is there any cable that allows this kind of connection?
A cable that directly translates into a SATA connector would be great, but even just a USB female connector would still help. I think....?
Also, any cable that translates USB to SATA, but leaves the power supply out?