[geeks] Cheap Dell Servers

[nate at portents.com]

>> "One" is true except when using SATA port multipliers.  Then the
>> answer
>> becomes 15, though 15 is not a practical way to divide the bandwidth
>> of a
>> single SATA port.  The other stipulation is that the SATA host
>> controller
>> must support a SATA port multiplier.
>
> A SATA port multiplier is several ports combined into one.

No, it's not:

http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp

http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/5x1/

> It's still only able to do one drive per port.

No, as I said, there's a theoretical upward limit of 15, but in practice
they implement the port multipliers supporting 5 drives.

The most common place you find them is in external SATA drive enclosures
that only need one cable and come bundled with a SATA card such as the
SiI3124 and SiI3132 - that way they ensure that you have a card that
supports the SATA port multiplier.

- Nate