Is dedicated SATA controller useful in reducing CPU load

[spikegifted]

Hi folks,

I am about to start a new build and I have 6 SSDs (OS, data, music, photo, downloads and backup).

Would there be any advantage in using a dedicated SATA controller (PCI-e 4 lanes) in reducing my CPU load when SSDs are continually access for various tasks? Many thanks.

For example, I might be ripping a CD to my music drive, while watching a movie I downloaded on my download drive, while backing up in the background.

Cheers.

[kalniel]

As far as I know, no. If you had a high RAID load then a hardware accelerated RAID controller might help, but I don't think JBOD would gain much.

Consider a NAS/microserver?

[shaithis]

It would need to be a HBA to gain any performance benefit and they are generally quite expensive.

For example: https://www.scan.co.uk/products/high...b-s-hbas-pci-e

and that's Highpoint which i wouldn't touch with a barge-pole.

[Dashers]

Hi folks,

I am about to start a new build and I have 6 SSDs (OS, data, music, photo, downloads and backup).

Would there be any advantage in using a dedicated SATA controller (PCI-e 4 lanes) in reducing my CPU load when SSDs are continually access for various tasks? Many thanks.

For example, I might be ripping a CD to my music drive, while watching a movie I downloaded on my download drive, while backing up in the background.

Cheers.

Not in this day and age, no. The caches are so stupidly big and CPUs have enough grunt that this simply is not something you need to consider in a domestic environment. The bottleneck is going to be the performance of the storage, not your CPU.

You'd be best off buying NVMe compatible storage instead of AHCI. This has shorter and parallel queues which decrease load on CPU and increase throughput to the storage device itself.

[Bonebreaker777]

Are the 6 x SSDs all the same size and type? I that case having all of them on one controller would be more beneficial, I would say.

Do you already have the motherboard or just planing to buy it?

[spikegifted]

Thanks folks for your replies.

BoneBreaker777:
The SSDs are of different sizes:
1 x SanDisk Ultra II 480GB (OS, apps, games)
1 x SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB (data + photos);
1 x Crucial MX300 750GB (media + photo backup);
3 x OCZ Vertex 3 240GB (downloads x 2 + data backup)

I am planning to use the Asus Z170 Pro Gaming MB.

Thanks.

[peterb]

I wouldn't have my data backup on the same machine as the data. If (for example) PSU goes and takes the drives with it, or the controller fails and so on. Better to have it on either another machine, or just plug in via a USB interface as and when needed.

[Devaraja]

For the time of use that you are describing it is not going to do much of a different.