Adding Second Sata Disk P5K-E

RobV wrote:
> marc wrote:
>> I am going to add a second sata disk (not raid).
>>
>> Should this disk be connected to one of the black sata connectors (3,
>> 4) ?
>> Would it cause a problem if connected to one of the red sata
>> connectors (2, 5, 6)?
>>
>> tia
>>
>> Marc
>
> The black connectors are "slaved" off the main (red) connectors. I
> thought that SATA did away with master/slave, but obviously not.
>
> Connect to the red socket, that way it's on a "master" channel. My two
> SATA drives are connected to red sockets (P5B-Plus, but basically the
> same thing) and all runs fine.
>
>

In ICH9R, there are two logic blocks for SATA control.

One controls four SATA connectors. The other controls two SATA connectors.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/316972.htm

Chapter 14 is for the four port SATA controller.
Chapter 15 is for the two port SATA controller.

I don't know about "master" and "slave", but the main controller
supports legacy and native mode (I/O space and IRQ14/15 versus
PCI address space and PCI interrupts). Legacy mode would work with
Win98, for example, without any specific driver for the chipset.
(Although you'd be hard pressed to make a fully functional Win98
install if you tried.) Perhaps the objective of legacy, is to support
any OS for which Intel did not provide drivers.

The second controller seems to be native mode only. I've heard you're
not supposed to be able to boot from the two port controller, but
nothing in the ICH9R datasheet seems to suggest that is the case.
As far as I can see, unless there is a BIOS issue, OSes like
WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or Vista, should be able to boot from the
second (Chapter 15) controller.

BIOS naming conventions are another issue. The BIOS design is
done by AMI or Award, and they pick names for stuff that they
are comfortable with. When the four ports are in legacy mode,
they appear to software like the old IDE disks, and that is
why you may see a reference to "master" and "slave", when the
SATA bus protocol has no such distinction. It is being used
as a descriptive term, as a way to uniquely name the disks
in a traditional way.

I haven't seen any clarification on RAID modes, as to whether
arrays can span the two controllers or not. That is all up
to the Intel driver or RAID BIOS designer, as most of these
chipset RAID features, are "soft RAID".

Best guess,
Paul
 >> Stay informed about: Adding Second Sata Disk P5K-E 

Paul wrote:
> RobV wrote:
>> marc wrote:
>>> I am going to add a second sata disk (not raid).
>>>
>>> Should this disk be connected to one of the black sata connectors
>>> (3, 4) ?
>>> Would it cause a problem if connected to one of the red sata
>>> connectors (2, 5, 6)?
>>>
>>> tia
>>>
>>> Marc
>>
>> The black connectors are "slaved" off the main (red) connectors. I
>> thought that SATA did away with master/slave, but obviously not.
>>
>> Connect to the red socket, that way it's on a "master" channel. My
>> two SATA drives are connected to red sockets (P5B-Plus, but
>> basically the same thing) and all runs fine.
>>
>>
>
> In ICH9R, there are two logic blocks for SATA control.
>
> One controls four SATA connectors. The other controls two SATA
> connectors.
> http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/316972.htm
>
> Chapter 14 is for the four port SATA controller.
> Chapter 15 is for the two port SATA controller.
>
> I don't know about "master" and "slave", but the main controller
> supports legacy and native mode (I/O space and IRQ14/15 versus
> PCI address space and PCI interrupts). Legacy mode would work with
> Win98, for example, without any specific driver for the chipset.
> (Although you'd be hard pressed to make a fully functional Win98
> install if you tried.) Perhaps the objective of legacy, is to support
> any OS for which Intel did not provide drivers.

Yes, that is what is referred to in the P5B manual, which uses the
ICH8R. On page 2-28 of the manual, it does refer to the legacy
operation in IDE mode, where SATA 1,2,5,6 would be considered "master"
and 3 and 4 would be "slaves".
Thanks for bringing that up; now I understand they were referring to
legacy IDE.

> The second controller seems to be native mode only. I've heard you're
> not supposed to be able to boot from the two port controller, but
> nothing in the ICH9R datasheet seems to suggest that is the case.
> As far as I can see, unless there is a BIOS issue, OSes like
> WinXP SP1 or Win2K SP4 or Vista, should be able to boot from the
> second (Chapter 15) controller.
>
> BIOS naming conventions are another issue. The BIOS design is
> done by AMI or Award, and they pick names for stuff that they
> are comfortable with. When the four ports are in legacy mode,
> they appear to software like the old IDE disks, and that is
> why you may see a reference to "master" and "slave", when the
> SATA bus protocol has no such distinction. It is being used
> as a descriptive term, as a way to uniquely name the disks
> in a traditional way.
>
> I haven't seen any clarification on RAID modes, as to whether
> arrays can span the two controllers or not. That is all up
> to the Intel driver or RAID BIOS designer, as most of these
> chipset RAID features, are "soft RAID".
>
> Best guess,
> Paul
 >> Stay informed about: Adding Second Sata Disk P5K-E