Add SATA ports to Asus M4A78T?

Hello all

I am guessing this is a easy thing to answer most here but I have been out of the computer game for a bit but I have a older Asus M4A78T motherboard that nativity has 5 internal SATA 2 connections.

Currently I have my OS drive running on two drives in RAID 0 on the first set of two of them, then a DVD-RW Optical and BD-RW Optical on the next two and another single SATA Hard drive on the 5th.

Years ago as I wanted a few more SATA connection for hard drives I bought a Highpoint 2640X1 RAID Controller HighPoint Global website that has 4 inputs and I am used just two of those just to make the connections (in other words not in RAID) for two more SATA drives I am just using for storage. Currently its plugged to the MB via one of its PCIe x1 slots.

At this point just to answer, no I have no idea why I bought this all that time ago for just this but at any rate, it works and it's what I have been using for some time.

So along with still leaving the OS RAID 0 Drives connected to their current Asus MB connections, now I would like to add a second RAID setup of two SSD drives and would rather put that on two of those native to the Asus SATA connections as things can get weird with that Highpoint adapter.

But to try to do this I have to find some way to connect those two optical drives and so just for giggles (and here comes the ignorant part) I tried to see if they would work on the Highpoint controller in its last two free ports but they would not show up in any way in the OS and even in the Highpoint config app.

So perhaps this is a really long winded way to ask, but what do I use in place of this HighPoint RAID controller to be able to connect the two SATA storage drives that are on it now, and the two Optical drives I need to get working into something I can plug into that PCIe x1 slot?

Thanks for any help.

The biggest advantage of a SSD over a HDD is speed and shockproof (important on laptops). The down side is high price.
In your case, the SSD should be used as a boot able disk for OS and programs (to take advantage of the speed). Makes no sense to use them for Data.

Almost all SSDs are SATA III (600MB/s). What brand and model are your SSDs?

As your MB and the 2640X1 are SATA II (300MB/s) you wont be using all the speed a SSD SATA III can give you.

If your SSDs are SATA II:
On the MB:
- Install the SSDs in SATA 0&1 and make a RAID 0 array
- Install the HDDs in SATA 2&3 (already on a RAID 0 array)
- Install the DVD-RW on SATA 4

On the 2640X1 (as this may not be a boot able device)
- Install the HDD in SATA 0
- Install the BD-RW on SATA 1

If your SSDs are SATA III my suggestion is to replace the 2640X1 with a boot able SATA III device.
StarTech.com 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering - PCIe SATA 3 Controller Adapter - Newegg.com

Megahertz07 said:

The biggest advantage of a SSD over a HDD is speed and shockproof (important on laptops). The down side is high price.
In your case, the SSD should be used as a boot able disk for OS and programs (to take advantage of the speed). Makes no sense to use them for Data.

Yes am just looking for this for a OS drive and am only looking for 500g for that so per the cost isn't to bad these days, at least per what performance gains they can give.

Megahertz07 said:

Almost all SSDs are SATA III (600MB/s). What brand and model are your SSDs?

Probably one of the Samsungs EVO's but I haven't figured out just which one yet.

Megahertz07 said:

As your MB and the 2640X1 are SATA II (300MB/s) you wont be using all the speed a SSD SATA III can give you.

Yeah I know, this is all kind of a last ditch effort to squeeze a year or two more out of this rig as hopefully this can get me by till I afford what I really would like.

Megahertz07 said:

If your SSDs are SATA II:
On the MB:
- Install the SSDs in SATA 0&1 and make a RAID 0 array
- Install the HDDs in SATA 2&3 (already on a RAID 0 array)
- Install the DVD-RW on SATA 4

On the 2640X1 (as this may not be a boot able device)
- Install the HDD in SATA 0
- Install the BD-RW on SATA 1

I like some of these recommendation but and I know the post about was long, if you might recall I wrote that I tried connecting both of the optical drives to the 2640X1 and neither would show up on it.

Perhaps there is something I have missed, but I have used all the ways I know of including its native conf program and the opticals just do not show up.

Essentially this is my primary problem.

Megahertz07 said:

If your SSDs are SATA III my suggestion is to replace the 2640X1 with a boot able SATA III device.
StarTech.com 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering - PCIe SATA 3 Controller Adapter - Newegg.com

Am guessing something like this would be better as that is kind of one of the issues with the 2640X1 unit as its not really bootable and needs to have its drivers loaded before it really works correctly.

So are you fairly confident the unit you linked will take the two optical drives?

Also, does it matter that the PCIe slot I would plug it into is a x1 and not a x2?

If you add some SATA ports, you'll need power for the SATA devices. Make sure you have sufficient internal SATA power connections to service all SATA devices. If you don't have enough, you can get some Y-adapters to add more ports.

If you happen to get SATA ports on the outside (i.e. available for external devices), then you'll need to get a SATA power extension cord to provide power to the external device.

At one time I ran SATA power and data extension cables out of the back of my computer. When I wanted to do a backup, I would power down, connect an internal hard drive (that wasn't installed in the machine), and power up. When the backup was done, I powered down, unhooked the drive, and stored the drive away.

This worked well for doing backups.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

External docks are inexpensive and "oneheckuvalot" easier to use.

Well, it was a lot of fun running the data and power cables out of the back of the computer, then connecting the drive as needed!