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1.6.3
Serial ATA Interfaces
The board provides five Serial ATA (SATA) connectors, which support one device per
connector. The board also provides one red external Serial ATA (eSATA) connector.
1.6.3.1
Serial ATA Support
The board's Serial ATA controller offers six independent Serial ATA ports with a
theoretical maximum transfer rate of 3 Gbits/sec per port. One device can be installed
on each port for a maximum of six Serial ATA devices. A point-to-point interface is
used for host to device connections, unlike Parallel ATA which supports a master/slave
configuration and two devices per channel.
For compatibility, the underlying Serial ATA functionality is transparent to the
operating system. The Serial ATA controller can operate in both legacy and native
modes. In legacy mode, standard IDE I/O and IRQ resources are assigned (IRQ 14
and 15). In native mode, standard PCI Conventional bus resource steering is used.
Native mode is the preferred mode for configurations using the Windows* XP and
Windows Vista operating systems.
NOTE
Many Serial ATA drives use new low-voltage power connectors and require adapters or
power supplies equipped with low-voltage power connectors.
For more information, see: http://www.serialata.org/.
For information about
The location of the Serial ATA connectors
Product Description
Refer to
Figure 10, page 46
23
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