SATA connectors vs channels?

Mike89

Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2003
Messages
702
I have 6 SATA connectors on my mb. If I connect 1 device per connector, Device Manager will not show 1 device per channel. It will show multiple devices on some channels and on other channels there will be nothing at all. So evidently each connector does not mean one channel as I thought it did. I had 6 SATA connectors so thought I had 6 channels but it's not quite that way. Apparently other factors are in place that decide which devices are on which channels regardless of which SATA connectors they are connected to. I've experimented with moving devices around the SATA connectors (trying to get 1 device on 1 channel) and the results are confusing cause the channels move differently than the devices moved on the connectors. Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me on this subject can't shed some light on my dumb ass.
 
I'm assuming you're talking about the MB in your sig. If so, you have 8 Sata ports on board, 6 by Intel and 2 by Asmedia. As far as I know, there should only be 1 channel per port.

As far as changing ports, each time you change drives on ports, each drive is registered on that particular port in the registry, so, each time you change drives on ports you need to do a "mountvol /r" (open CMD window, mountvol /r, enter) to clear the old port/drive info from the registry, then reboot.

Here is where you'll find the registry entries to be able to check if it's current:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
 
From what I've read I think the 1 channel per port thing is only if it's configured AHCI. Mine is IDE which I guess can configure more than one channel per port. My daughter's Asus mb shows similar "more than 1 channel per port" also and it's IDE too.
 
Tagged is like a bump. I just wanted to watch and see where this goes or what info comes up as I did not know anything about the ports and the registry ;)
 
is tagging a thread similar to subscribing to it? Under thread tools you can click "subscribe to this thread" without having to post in it.
 
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