can I swap SATA ports on my motherboard?

[Santuzzo]

Hi,

I just had a thread recently about a DVD rom drive that was not recognized by my PC, and when I opened up the case of my PC I noticed something about the SATA ports on my motherboard which led me to open this new thread.

I noticed on my motherboard there are two different kinds of SATA ports, one kind is red (there is a total of six of these) and then there are two orange SATA ports and in the manual of my motherboard it says the orange ones are mean t for hard discs and can be used to configure RAID.

I do have two discs in RAID 1 and according to the manual of my motherboard these discs should be connected to these orange SATA ports, which in my case they currently are not.

By the way: the hard drives in RAID 1 set up are just data drives, NOT OS-drives, not sure if that makes a difference, though.

My question to you guys: how do I fix this? My RAID 1 setup seems to be fine, but if these two SATA ports are meant for RAID, I think I should hook up my two RAID 1 discs to them.
BUT: could swapping the ports my drives are connected to mess up my RAID 1 set up or mess up anything else on my PC? And I mean swapping from a red port to an orange colored one.
I'm hesitant to try this, because I am cared I could screw things up .....


Thanks,
Lars

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Those two orange ports are meant for SAS disks, not SATA. If you plugged your cd drive upto those orange ports, that would be why it wasn't recognized...

 

[S0ULphIRE]

I have that mobo too XD those ports should be backwards-compatible with SATA devices too, but I guess it's super easy to test. Just unplug the dvd drive from the orange port and connect it to one of the red ones.

 

[Santuzzo]

Thanks guys!

Yes, you are right, those are indeed SAS ports.
This just goes to show how much of a noob I am with computers.
I just read that part in the manual again, an those orange ports are so called SAS ports (not that I actually know what SAS or SATA is, I just guess it's some kind of connection format).

In the manual it says this:

Marvell 88SE6320 SAS RAID connectors (orange) (7-pin SAS1-2)
These connectors are for SAS signal cables that support SAS hard disk drives. To configure RAID 0 or RAID 1, install two SAS hard disk drives to these connectors.
When ICH10R SATA ports are set to RAID or AHCI mode, SAS HDDs can be detected in Windows environment only.
Please install the Marvell controller driver before using the yellow SAS RAID connectors (SAS1-2)....

I don't understand any of this, but to me it sounds like I have everything connected and set up incorrectly ....
Will I have to re-install Windows?

another thing that just came to my mind is that at the device manager there was a RAID controller listed with a little yellow question mark. when I click on it it said a driver for this controller is missing, but whenever I tried to install the driver it would not work. :idk:
I figured this may have something to do with this?
The strange thing about the RAID controller that's missing a driver, is that in my device manager there are the RAID drivers under storage controllers listed, but the RAD controller that's missing a driver is under 'other devices':

When I open Intel Matrix Storage Console, it shows me this:

Does that look right? Or is there something wrong here?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Your setup is fine, just switch the DVD drive to one of the spare red ports and you'll be set (if it works).

For the missing controller, try this one
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mi...dows7.zip?_ga=1.29465336.671706275.1468657156

All drivers here: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P6T_Deluxe/HelpDesk_Download/

 

[Santuzzo]

Your setup is fine, just switch the DVD drive to one of the spare red ports and you'll be set (if it works).

For the missing controller, try this one
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mi...dows7.zip?_ga=1.29465336.671706275.1468657156

All drivers here: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P6T_Deluxe/HelpDesk_Download/

Thank you very much!
The problem is, all the red ports are currently taken.
I guess I don't really need the extra DVD drive, I already have two. But I have 4 in total, one is the one that is not recognized and the 4th is not connected due to lack of SATA ports.

Do you have an idea why there are two separate RAID controllers to begin with?
I only have one RAID disk (well, two disks, but one RAID setup), so I guess the RAID controller that is listed under 'other devices' might be a mistake?
Could that have anything to do with the DVD drive that's currently hooked up to one of the SAS ports?
Would it be a good idea to try to unplug it and then reboot to see if that RAID controller that's missing a driver disappears in the device manager?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Lol why so many DVD drives

Just install the driver I linked you to, the question marked raid controller should be properly recognised after that.
Some mobos just have more than one available

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Hrm, if I am not mistaken, that's an enthusiast board from way back isn't it? Not uncommon to see several controllers on board to give more storage options on such boards... Even lower tier consumer grade boards will have two controllers if they have more than 6 SATA ports...

But like S0ul said earlier, SATA disks can be used on SAS, but SAS can't be used on SATA.

SAS = Serial Attached SCSI (Typically only seen in servers, allows SATA disks to connect to it)
SCSI = Small Computer System Interface (Seen in older servers, and much older desktops)
SATA = Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Seen since the early 2000's in everything just about, uses only SATA connectivity.)

 

[Santuzzo]

Lol why so many DVD drives

Just install the driver I linked you to, the question marked raid controller should be properly recognised after that.
Some mobos just have more than one available

Thanks again.

I like having 4 DVD drives, because it's very easy when ripping CDs into iTunes. Also when I record music and I want to burn audio CDs having 4 drives comes in handy.

I did find that Asus support link with all the downloads for my mobo, but it was all very confusing to me. All I downloaded and installed back then was the Intel Matrix Storage Console as Asus told me it has the RAID drivers.
Was it a mistake to install that?

I will install the driver you linked me to, but which file do I need do run? There are some many files in that zip folder. Do I run the setup file or the AsusSetup file?

One more question with regard to this driver: could the fact that this driver is missing be the reason my DVD drive is not recognized? does the SAS port need a different driver to work (even in downwards-compatibility for SATA) than a regular SATA port? Could that be the source of the problem?

Hrm, if I am not mistaken, that's an enthusiast board from way back isn't it? Not uncommon to see several controllers on board to give more storage options on such boards... Even lower tier consumer grade boards will have two controllers if they have more than 6 SATA ports...

But like S0ul said earlier, SATA disks can be used on SAS, but SAS can't be used on SATA.

SAS = Serial Attached SCSI (Typically only seen in servers, allows SATA disks to connect to it)
SCSI = Small Computer System Interface (Seen in older servers, and much older desktops)
SATA = Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (Seen since the early 2000's in everything just about, uses only SATA connectivity.)

Thanks! I believe my RAID disks are SATA, and not SAS. But what still is weird in my opinion is that the DVD drive that's now connected to one of the SAS ports is not recognized. But maybe that has to do with the missing driver mentioned above?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Yep AsusSetup.exe