mSATA takes away SATA port?

[kd6icz]

So I'm ready to start using my new HTPC. I received my last component today and was getting ready to enable RAID 5 on the four 6TB WD RED drives. Go into setup to do this and only three of the four are showing up. Oh and my 32GB mSATA boot drive.

I troubleshoot and determine that the fourth SATA connector is dead. I've read the motherboard manual and nowhere does it state using the mSATA connector will disable a SATA connector. But doing a Google search I see where this has been the case in the past. Really? On a server motherboard that only has four SATA connectors? This seems really dumb to me. Besides removing the mSATA, is there anyway to verify this?

[Crash2009]

MSI?

[kd6icz]

Supermicro X10SLV-Q

[Doctor Feelgood]

Not sure about the server board market, but I think that is common... One Gigabyte Mini-ITX desktop I have has mSATA and it does the same to the other SATA ports.

Do you happen to have a USB 3.0 adapter that could power the mSATA drive? Would free up the port if that were your problem too. I am not sure how many people would have an mSATA to USB enclosure, but if you had a SATA to USB enclosure, you could add something like this... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007PPZ2I8 - I have one of those that I use for cloning to mSATA drives when used with a traditional USB enclosure that came bundled with a different 2.5" SSD.

Or maybe even a PCIe mSATA adapter?

[kd6icz]

Not sure about the server board market, but I think that is common... One Gigabyte Mini-ITX desktop I have has mSATA and it does the same to the other SATA ports.

Do you happen to have a USB 3.0 adapter that could power the mSATA drive? Would free up the port if that were your problem too. I am not sure how many people would have an mSATA to USB enclosure, but if you had a SATA to USB enclosure, you could add something like this... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007PPZ2I8 - I have one of those that I use for cloning to mSATA drives when used with a traditional USB enclosure that came bundled with a different 2.5" SSD.

Or maybe even a PCIe mSATA adapter?

I am thinking something along those lines. This is just so frustrating! I pulled the mSATA drive and sure enough all four spinners showed up in BIOS.

The PCIe slot is free so I was looking at just getting an inexpensive mSATA controller to install there. They can be had for around $50. I found the Apricorn Velocity Solo line. They have a $150 line that can accommodate two 2.5" drives. Maybe I'll get that with a couple of 2TB laptop drives and use that for boot and my other media.

[kd6icz]

Not sure about the server board market, but I think that is common... One Gigabyte Mini-ITX desktop I have has mSATA and it does the same to the other SATA ports.

Do you happen to have a USB 3.0 adapter that could power the mSATA drive? Would free up the port if that were your problem too. I am not sure how many people would have an mSATA to USB enclosure, but if you had a SATA to USB enclosure, you could add something like this... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007PPZ2I8 - I have one of those that I use for cloning to mSATA drives when used with a traditional USB enclosure that came bundled with a different 2.5" SSD.

Or maybe even a PCIe mSATA adapter?

I am thinking something along those lines. This is just so frustrating! I pulled the mSATA drive and sure enough all four spinners showed up in BIOS.

The PCIe slot is free so I was looking at just getting an inexpensive mSATA controller to install there. They can be had for around $50. I found the Apricorn Velocity Solo line. They have a $150 line that can accommodate two 2.5" drives. Maybe I'll get that with a couple of 2TB laptop drives and use that for boot and my other media.

[kd6icz]

One thing this motherboard does have (which I can't really figure out why) is a full USB 2.0 connector internally mounted on the motherboard. If I could convert a USB Flash drive to look like a non-removable hard drive I might be able to use that.

[Doctor Feelgood]

Unless just for testing - USB 2.0 might be annoyingly slow... How about USB 3.0 on the outside?

[kd6icz]

Unless just for testing - USB 2.0 might be annoyingly slow... How about USB 3.0 on the outside?

I do have a couple of USB 3.0 ports on the back. I think the flash memory on either interface is going to be the bottleneck. I hoping that just to boot won't be too horribly bad? I don't know. I'm going to test it today.

My biggest issue right now is trying to find a flash drive with the removable bit turned off. I read where all SanDisk flash drives 2013 and later have the removable bit turned off. I ordered one to see if it's true.

Once the system is up and running I think access to the flash drive will be minimal. I'm disabling the page file and leaving the machine on 24/7.

I'll know more in a few hours. I was able to put a portable version of Windows 8.1 Pro on an old 64GB HP flash drive I have.

[Doctor Feelgood]

If you popped your mSATA drive in to something like this adapter... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007PPZ2I8 And then put that inside a USB 3.0 drive enclosure like this... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00LS31KQG - You would have the full speed of USB 3.0 for under $30... and the BIOS should be configurable to let you boot from it.

[Bryan]

One thing this motherboard does have (which I can't really figure out why) is a full USB 2.0 connector internally mounted on the motherboard. If I could convert a USB Flash drive to look like a non-removable hard drive I might be able to use that.

That's common on server boards for installing ESXi and other hypervisors on.

Why not just get a cheap PCI Express SATA card for the last drive? I would do that before messing with mSATA adapters or USB.

[kd6icz]

That's common on server boards for installing ESXi and other hypervisors on.

Why not just get a cheap PCI Express SATA card for the last drive? I would do that before messing with mSATA adapters or USB.

Well... Its not quite that simple. I have a PCIe x2 SATA RAID controller sitting over here in a box not being used. But I can't find the high profile bracket for it.

Another challenge is space in the case. I'm using a Cooler Master Elite 120 (white in color) which has three 3.5" internal bays and one 5.25" external bay. I have four hard drives mounted inside which means I'm using an adapter for the 5.25" bay and have no more room for drives. I do have the Icy Dock 5.25" adapter sitting over here too which allows two 2.5" and one 3.5" drive to be mounted in a single 5.25" bay. To use that I would have to remove the white/silver cover from the case and expose the ugly black plastic of the Icy Dock. It really looks bad...

So I'm thinking it's coming down to this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 12-161-007

It holds two drives and is a controller all in one. I could throw a couple of the 2TB Samsung's laptop drives on it and have some space for music, movies, etc.

Its just another thing to buy...

[kd6icz]

I was able to get the system up and running in a USB flash drive. I have a bunch of Micro Center branded sticks that have a see thru housing. One of them was a 128GB and I could read the brand and model number printed on the USB controller chip. I then Googled that info and the same Russian website that I had been pointed to several times researching "Flipping Removable Bit" popped up with mass production firmware programming tool from the chip manufacturer. They had a separate small tool that flipped the bit.

It worked like a champ! The USB drive now looks like a fixed disk by Windows. It wasn't quite that easy. I had to use a partition program to copy the Windows files over. It did it in the same fashion as Windows to Go. That's a whole different thread. Essentially, even though the USB stick identified itself as a hard disk, Windows setup still knew it was attached via USB and would not continue. So the partition software was a work around.

It's a bit slow on startup. But once everything is in RAM it seems to be ok. I'll run it for a bit to see how it does. My only fear is the USB drive might not like the around the clock operation.

[sbaeder]

thats why it's usually used for "live" OS boots - just make sure if there is any swap, etc. that it's not on the "C:" drive!

[kd6icz]

I decided to give up on the flash drive. It was working fine once everything booted up but loading drivers was painfully slow. So I found this and thought it was perfect. The price was perfect too!

http://www.addonics.com/products/ad4mspx2-a.php

It allows me (I think - I see holes) to use my half-height mSATA SSD in one slot and put mSATA to SATA adapters in the other three slots for additional laptop sized hard drives. On those I can put music and movies I've encoded.

[Mystic95Z]

Installing a m.2 card on my Gigabyte Z97 mobo dropped two of my sata ports...