SATA drives are common in modern computers, but older ones can use a SATA card to connect them. These cards occupy a PCI expansion slot and allow access to large modern drives, but can be buggy. SATA cards can contain one to four internal drives and zero to two external drives. Some have a limit on the number of active ports, and some also contain a RAID chip.
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives are a variety of hard drives common in modern computers. Older computers did not have SATA functionality and cannot use drives. To work around this restriction, older computers can use a SATA card to allow connection of one or more SATA drives. A SATA card is a type of expansion card similar to a sound or video card. These cards offer access to large modern drives, but have a tendency to be buggy and difficult to configure.
A typical SATA card occupies a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) expansion slot. These slots are often used for installing add-on network cards, port cards, and sound cards. They are common on most standard personal computers. The only machines that don’t have expansion slots are extremely compact systems, such as gaming computers or other portable desktop systems.
A SATA card allows users without SATA capabilities to use SATA drives or users with a SATA system to use additional drives. These cards contain a controller, similar to those that come standard on a motherboard. This controller acts as an extension of the main motherboard systems, allowing the use of additional drives. A standard SATA card can contain one to four internal drives and zero to two external drives.
Depending on the age of the computer and the type of SATA card installed, a user will have different results. Some computers disable drives installed on the computer in favor of drives installed through the card. Other systems will have difficulty using internal and external SATA drives at the same time.
Most older motherboards used an advanced parallel technology link or an interface with integrated electronics (PATA and IDE) for their drives. These systems would commonly allow four drives to run on a single computer. Some older systems have the four-unit limit hardwired into the system; to install new drives, the older ports must be disabled.
Some SATA cards have a limit on the number of active ports at any given time. For example, a card with two internal ports and one external port may be a “two-port” card, even though it has room for three drives. When a drive is plugged into the external port, one of the internal ports will fail. This is very common in older SATA cards and has become less common since then.
While some SATA cards are simply drive expansions, some also contain a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) chip. This allows users to connect drives to the card and set up a RAID within their computer. This raid is independent of normal disk systems, making it suitable for backup and long-term archiving.
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