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In the following context SATA only supports a single driver per channel?

What is a channel?

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A channel in this context is a single electrical connection. SCSI of old connected multiple devices to a channel and addressed each device through a feature in the signaling protocol on the wires. SATA lacks this as it is purposely a simpler protocol.

Which begs the question, So how to port-multipliers work, then?

This is an optional extension to the SATA protocol that not all controllers implement (it adds cost). When used with a port-multiplier you can actually connect multiple drives to a single channel, as the port-multiplier handles the drive-addressibility.

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  • Thank you for your help it is appreciated. By single electrical connection would this mean one cable from the drive to the motherboard in the server/PC? Very new to this
    – topcat
    Mar 24, 2013 at 14:42
  • @topcat Yep, that's exactly it, one cable. Mar 24, 2013 at 15:56

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