Motherboard question...?

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I notice a lot of the newer motherboards are (understandably) loading up on SATA interfaces and cutting down on IDE/PATA. I've seen quite a few that are one IDE interface (ie two devices) and a PATA RAID controller.

Does anyone know if these PATA RAID can also be used for non-raid devices? Can you plug all kinds of ATA devices (like disc burners) or can these RAID controllers only do hard drives at best? I'm really asking if I can just use the RAID interface just like an ordinary IDE interface for a couple of IDE devices.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

You don't have to use RAID just because the controller features it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You don't have to use RAID just because the controller features it.

Some of the earlier on-board/intergrated RAID controllers were only using a subset of the IDE protocols, and even in single disk mode, were really only good for hard drives. They were not really usable for other IDE devices like disc burners.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

I haven't encountered an issue with a modern motherboard using an optical drive on a PATA RAID controller, Intel, AMD, NV, Sis, and Via chipsets.

 

[Davros]

my asus board has 2 ide controllers but you can only put an atapi device (cd,dvd,dvd-r ect) on one of them

From the manual:

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

That's more what I was expecting. Looking at a manual for one of the current performance X38 boards from Asus, you can only have two IDE devices. The RAID controller is actually SATA only. You don't have to RAID the SATA, but you can only fit two IDE devices to the motherboard.

 

[Davros]

if it has 2 ide ports like mine you can have 4 ide devices, but a maximum 2 atapi

 

[poopypoo]

if it has 2 ide ports like mine you can have 4 ide devices, but a maximum 2 atapi

i think BZB may also be thinking about what they used to tell you -- not to attach two optical drives on the same IDE channel (for optimum performance). Is this still the case?

 

[Broken Hope]

That's more what I was expecting. Looking at a manual for one of the current performance X38 boards from Asus, you can only have two IDE devices. The RAID controller is actually SATA only. You don't have to RAID the SATA, but you can only fit two IDE devices to the motherboard.

You can only have 2 IDE devices on most newer motherboards because Intel doesn't actually support PATA in the chipset any more and hasn't for a while. So companies such as Asus use a 3rd party controller chip, usually JMicron.

I have no issues using a DVD burner on my Asus X38 motherboard though with it attached to the JMicron controller.