M6400 eSATA question

Is it possible to connect more than one eSATA device to the external eSATA port?

<wishes that Dell had a user guide for their flagship product>

 

Not really, unless you know of some kind of eSATA multiplier/multiplexor.

 

Cheers Greg.
I figured as much - but thought I would ask anyways.
M

 

Intel GM45 chipset supports eSATA port multipliers, but is limited to Command Based (CB)and not FIS switching.

CB means each transaction needs to be completed to the destination drive before it can proceeed with the next transaction to the next drive. More info on the difference between CB & FIS here In most usage this is won't matter much.

You can pickup a 5 port external multiplier for $95 like this one that's practical to connect up to 5 external drives. Sort of acts like a USB hub for drives, but it's eSATA.

Other internal cards like these as well if you're using inside an external enclosure with drives.

Otherwise, if you want faster FIS based eSATA, you can always pick up one of these express cards to go with the external 5 port eSATA multiplier.

 

Many thanks!
M

 

You could put a 2.5" HDD in the media bay as described in this thread to have a total of 3 HDDs connected at the same time.

John

 

I guess the obvious question now is - if using an eSATA multiplexor attached to a docking station could you create a raid 5 array or something with only the external drives? And if so how would it cope with being undocked etc.

We *really* need Dell to write a manual for this!

 

Unfortunately, no, IRRT which is a raid 1 (mirror) of the main OS drive onto a second drive (which Intel calls Rapid Recovery) and is quite useless.

If direct attached storage with raid level support is what you're after, forget about the port multiplier and get this . It supports 5 hotswap drives with it's own raid 0,1,5,6,10 & JBOD. Connectivity is extremely flexible in that you can access it via direct connect single eSATA or usb as well as over 10/100/1000 network.

 

I own a M6400 Covet and I bought a rosewill 4 bay esata enclosure with port multiplier from newegg. When connecting it, it only sees 1 drive and a message pops up saying with port multipliers you will only see 1 drive (windows 7) and I have installed the "current" intel matrix storage manager from dell's support site (may not be the latest). So perhaps the m6400 isn't using the internal gm45 sata connection for the esata, or there is some driver missing.