ASRock P4i945GC - does it support 3TB or 4TB SATA drives?

[billgayler]

I have a ASRock P4i945GC that I use as part of nt SAN. I am looking to swap out one of the drives with a 3TB or 4TB drive. Does the firmware (v1.30) support this. If not, what can I do to use this drive?

Thanks

[Acebmxer]

Re: ASRock P4i945GC - does it support 3TB or 4TB SATA drives?

I am going to take a guess and say no, as the last bios update for that board was back in 2009.

If you already have the drive, you can connect and confirm but I would not go out and buy one just to try.

[billgayler]

Re: ASRock P4i945GC - does it support 3TB or 4TB SATA drives?

Thanks. That's what I suspected.

Do you think I can buy a plug in PCI card that would would work with this bios? Something like this? PCIe SATA 3.0 Controller Card - 6gbps | 2 port | StarTech.com Global

btw I meant it is part of a NAS not a SAN.

[Acebmxer]

Re: ASRock P4i945GC - does it support 3TB or 4TB SATA drives?

That card should work with a 2tb+ drives. But the Marvell 9128 controller it uses you will not see true Sata3 speeds if you plan to use it for a ssd later. I dont think sata3 hdds can come close to maxing out sata3 like a SSD can but the same still apply you wont see full sata3 speeds.

The Marvell 9182 will give full sata3 speeds. When these chips are built into the motherboards the 9128 only uses PCI-e 1x where the 9182 uses PCI-e 2x, the card you picked out is PCI-e 1x. I dont know if the Marvell 9128 would give better speeds if it was using a PCI-e 2x slot.

I only bring this up as there has been know issues with the Marvell 9128 controllers built into must of the motherboards. I would look for another card that does not use this Marvell 9128 controller even if you are using Sata2 drives.