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Maximum number of supported SATA drives
Hello,
I recently purchased an XPS 400 and I'm interested in adding additional hard drives. I see that the motherboard has 4 seven pin SATA connections, but the technical specifications say that only 2 SATA drives are supported.
I'm guessing that I am only able to install 1 additional hard drive without needing a PCI SATA controller card? Is there a way to convert the other 2 SATA connections to accept additional hard drives?
I found the information here:
I have seen others that own XPS 600's that have up to 5 drives without adding a controller card.
Thanks for your help!
TomXPS
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January 26th, 2006 19:00
The mother board supports 4 SATA devices, and 2 IDE devices. Problem is the case only has room for 2 HD, and 2 CD drives. I think there may be a third/and fourth slot available in the flexable 3 1/2 drive the spec referes to. Not sure about power connectors.
I did see once a connector to move the SATA ports to the outside to be to an external SATA HD encloser.
Message Edited by TomXPS on 01-26-2006 01:17 PM
Spyderturbo007
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January 26th, 2006 21:00
Message Edited by Spyderturbo007 on 01-26-2006 05:18 PM
Message Edited by Spyderturbo007 on 01-26-2006 05:44 PM
TomXPS
1.3K Posts
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January 26th, 2006 22:00
Best to look at you documentation and look inside the case. The Dimension or XPS are desktop so the number of hard drives they expect a user to have is limited. It's not a Server. With 500 GB drives you can get a lot of data on 2 HD.
Yes SATA drives are either 150 mbs (SATA 1) or 300 mbs (SATA 2) not sure if there a much gain from SATA 1 to 2 since usually the 150 mbs speed is not even being hit as far as actual transfer rate. But if I was buying drives and the cost was not much different I would certainly buy the SATA 2 version.
Spyderturbo007
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January 30th, 2006 11:00
CTskydiver
932 Posts
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January 30th, 2006 11:00
CTskydiver
932 Posts
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January 30th, 2006 12:00
X-Rogue
366 Posts
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January 30th, 2006 15:00
The specs say 375W Power supply for the 400, you will be fine. Just watch your temp inside the case, CT, Phil1234 and others have posts on recommended temp limits for their XPS systems.
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