Closing down SATA in the BIOS

Paul Hogan

Junior Member
Dec 27, 2017
10
0
6
Are there any consumer motherboards (Z170/Z270/Z370) that allow you to shut down the SATA ports in the BIOS and reassign the resources they use to PCIe ports (i.e. increase the number of PCIe ports that are X16)?
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,380
146
I don't know of any on those chipsets you mentioned above, but maybe someone has seen something I haven't.

I know some of the PCIe slots (outside of the two main X16 slots) share lanes with various stuff like SATA through the PCH, but I have only seen some SATA ports and some PCIe slots get disabled if one or the other is used.
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,437
1,659
136
The math doesn't work that way Paul. I am going to use my X370 board, it's AMD but the science behind it is pretty much the same.

My 1700 has 24 PCIe 3.0 Lanes coming from the CPU. I have 2 NVME/SATA M.2 ports and 8 Sata ports. 4 of those PCIe lanes go to the Chipset. The board/chipset then take the 4x PCIe, splits it down to 8x PCIe 2.0. 4 of those go to one of the M.2 ports that is shared with a PCIE 4x slot, 1 goes to a PCIE 2.0 1x slot, the other 3 get split out for USB/Sata/Audio and other extraneous items (like my boards add-on asmedia 2 Sata ports).

4 PCIE 3.0 lanes goes to the primary M.2 slot. The other 16x goes to Primary PCIe 16x slot and then split to secondary slot if both have something installed.

The reason I point this out is that the M.2 slots both support Sata. But both are dedicated connections shared with respective SATA ports. Having Sata enabled doesn't steal away performance. The slot just happens to be wired for it. For the first slot if PCIe 4x is used the sata one is untouched. If SATA is used the 4x PCIE goes to waste. For the second slot, same thing, but one difference. If PCIe drive is used a 4x PCIe slot is disabled. If SATA is used a sata port on the board is disabled. SATA just happens to be another tech using the the 4x PCIe assigned to the chipset, used as needed when needed. The resources that the chipset sets aside for these non PCIe workloads (USB/Audio/Sata) can't be reassigned. They are just there to be used when needed.

The Intel platforms work the same way but they a multiplexer in the chipset that takes the 4x PCIe lanes in for communication to the CPU, but it creates or basically has on the chipset a bunch more lanes. How they are assigned are pretty similar. It might look like you have a bunch of PCIe lanes, but really you don't, you only have the 4x PCIe to the CPU. Also again the Sata doesn't have dedicated lanes. It's server directly from the Chipset and uses the resources and connection the the CPU when it needs it but doesn't have its own PCIe pathway.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,554
10,171
126
OP, if you have a need for more PCI-E x16 slots, than are provided by the mainstream consumer platforms (1:x16, 2:x8/x8), then you need to step up to an HEDT platform, which has way more PCI-E lanes. (Be aware that Intel's lowest-end CPUs on their HEDT platforms, also gimp their PCI-E lanes, as compared to the "bigger" HEDT CPUs. Don't get caught by that.)
 
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