Hi there,
As I know on the motherboard of x386 architecture where are 2 slots for PATA (Parallel ATA). This means a maximum of 4 hdd (2 masters - primary and slave & 2 secondary - master and slave).

What is not clear for me is how does it works with SATA.

My exact questions are:

- is there a 1-to-1 relation between slots on MB and HDD?
- how many SATA Slots are where on the MB? Is there a standard (like 2 for PATA) or does it depend on vendor?
- if there is a possibility of more 4 hdd, how are they named?

Thanks for help me clarifying that.

Generally there are 2 SATA slots on your motherboard and that will get you 2 drives. I believe that there is something called a port expander, but it's really cheaper to just get another controller if you need more than 2 drives. There are controller cards with at least 4 slots that I've seen; maybe more.

Do you mean on motherboards in general or on a specific type of motherboard? My motherboards support six SATA devices a piece. One even has a PCI card plugged in which supports two more. I am under the impression that six is something of a standard nowaday, although some offer even more. In addition, the nature of Sata slots may vary: one or more may be external Sata slots, which allows plugging in external Sata drives.

And yes, Sata means one slot per device.

Sata disks are organized just like pata disks only they are called sd instead of hd: sda, sdb, sdc etc.

It is really dependant on vendor. I think MOST motherboard manufactures have at least 4 sata ports (4 HD). Some of the newer boards have 6(some have 8) sata ports but usually then drop down to one pata port. The reduction in pata ports is due to the fact that cd/dvd sata drives have not quite gotten their act together. When the cd/dvd thing gets settled down I would expect that pata will be dropped altogether and sata to "standardize" on 6 ports (much as the old standard was 2 pata ports).

So, yes 1:1 relationship. One slot: one Drive.

The devices (in linux) are treated just like scsi devices. (sdX). The newer kernels will be treating all hard drives this way (pata, sata or scsi).

As stated above you can also add another card to the motherboard.

A good resource to look at would be newegg. They have a good collection of motherboards and give plenty of information on each(as well as a link to the manufactures (specific model) web page).


Edit: I type really slow.

Ah, cool. I guess time has passed my old mobos bye.

Thanks for your answers. It helps.

Is it still available primary master, primary slave, secondary master and secondary slave? If yes, how will we name the 5th, 6th etc HDD?

In my bios it just goes sata1,sata2, etc....

As far as booting: It just gives me the option of choosing any drive.

Five and six should be sde and sdf.

Strictly speaking, there isn't any distinction between master and slave anymore. Even so, the manual to my ASUS motherboard advises against using the third and fourth drivese as boot devices. Asrock on the other hand does not mention such limitations; and my boot device with that motherboard is effectively the third drive. I assume this is vendor specific.

How the drives appear in BIOS depends on the way you are running them: in IDE or AHCI mode. For some reason they take a different name when switching from one mode to the other. Under Linux, however, they are still sda, sdb, etc.