A+ question: Which PC drive interfaces don’t support two drives per controller?

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

As I make this post, I wonder if we should have a Certification section on these forums. Every cert forum I've seen is a barren wasteland compared to TPU.

Anyway, on to my post:

The answers are SCSI and SATA. I was wondering to myself if they meant connection instead of controller?

newtekie1 · Mar 9, 2010

DirectorC said:
As I make this post, I wonder if we should have a Certification section on these forums. Every cert forum I've seen is a barren wasteland compared to TPU.

Anyway, on to my post:

The answers are SCSI and SATA. I was wondering to myself if they meant connection instead of controller?

Yeah, that is why I hate A+ cert questions, they are worded so poorly. I almost think the more your know, the less likely you are to pass.

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

newtekie1 said:
Yeah, that is why I hate A+ cert questions, they are wrong.

One thing that is widely known is that they are often poorly worded as all hell. My teacher called this 'them playing with you to see how technical your knowledge is'. BS, these nerds making these tests need to go take English classes (or rather reading and comprehension).

Salvadorian Stuff · Mar 9, 2010

Some A+ certification questions are pretty much not well made.. I don't know what was harder when I took the test.. the test or the way the Comtia wrote all those questions.. some of them does not make sense... I barely hit the 80% of the questions, because I did not understand some incoherent questions... lol

Yeap we will have some advices here about A+ Certification (also N+ and S+).. would be great source of technical enrichment, you know coming from TPU is good trusted!

freaksavior · Mar 9, 2010

Im in a A+ certification right now, and im bored out of my mind in it.

Jstn7477 · Mar 9, 2010

That is a poorly worded question. Can't SCSI have many drives on a controller (like 7 drives and 1 host on a cable)? That would make it able to have two drives on a controller as one of many cases, and not fulfill the question in that case? Am I right about what I'm explaining?

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

Jstn7477 said:
That is a poorly worded question. Can't SCSI have many drives on a controller (like 7 drives and 1 host on a cable)? That would make it able to have two drives on a controller as one of many cases, and not fulfill the question in that case? Am I right about what I'm explaining?

I was going to say that not only can SCSI have two devices per controller, but devices can be daisy-chained so they can indeed have many drives per CONNECTION even, so yeah.

Anyway, I just found out the test I was taking was actually made by an individual party. It seems like he based it on actual questions and answers though.

FordGT90Concept · Mar 9, 2010

SATA is the most likely answer. How many channels per controller can vary greatly pending on controller design. Basically:
SCSI = 8 or 16 (- 1 for terminator)
SATA = 1
IDE/ATA/PATA = 2
SAS = 65,636 (via expanders)

A single controller can support multiple channels (e.g. two is common for PATA) so yeah, the wording is bad.

Disparia · Mar 9, 2010

Hhahaha... good joke DirectorC. Oh? It's not April 1st?! Oh no!

DirectorC said:
The answers are SCSI and SATA.

newtekie1 · Mar 9, 2010

FordGT90Concept said:
SATA is the most likely answer. How many channels per controller can vary greatly pending on controller design. Basically:
SCSI = 8 or 16 (- 1 for terminator)
SATA = 1
IDE/ATA/PATA = 2
SAS = 65,636 (via expanders)

A single controller can support multiple channels (e.g. two is common for PATA) so yeah, the wording is bad.

Can't SATA also support multiple drives per channel/connector via port multipliers? I know only some controllers support this though.

W1zzard · Mar 9, 2010

you have as only choices SCSI and SATA ? then both

FordGT90Concept · Mar 9, 2010

newtekie1 said:
Can't SATA also support multiple drives per channel/connector via port multipliers? I know only some controllers support this though.

Sure it isn't SAS? The connectors are similar but the data protocol is different (has backwards support for ye old SCSI).

As far as I know, a port multiplier would have to be a controller itself because it has to have one terminal (SATA instead of PCI or PCI Express) and multiple initial points. The SATA protocol doesn't allow more than one drive (HDD, SDD, or optical) per channel.

brandonwh64 · Mar 9, 2010

floppy LOLOLOL!

Deleted member 3 · Mar 9, 2010

FordGT90Concept said:
SCSI = 8 or 16 (- 1 for terminator)

Controller, not terminator

Is A+ eally as simple as it always seems? Perhaps I should just take the exam and put it on my CV

W1zzard · Mar 9, 2010

brandonwh64 said:
floppy LOLOLOL!

floppy supports 2 drives

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

W1zzard said:
you have as only choices SCSI and SATA ? then both

The other options are ATA and High Speed ATA.

And how don't SCSI and SATA support two drives per controller? ' C O N T R O L L E R ' is the CHIP not the PLUG/PORT right?!

brandonwh64 · Mar 9, 2010

W1zzard said:
floppy supports 2 drives

I know wiz i was just joking :toast:

TIGR · Mar 9, 2010

That is not just poorly worded, it's inaccurately worded as they seem to have meant the connectors/ports. Which once again is arguably inaccurate since, as was previously mentioned, you can use port multipliers to connect multiple SATA devices to a single SATA host port much in the same way USB hubs work.

This is assuming you consider the disk controller to that which actually manages the physical disks and presents them to the OS as logical units, between the front-end interface (to the computer's host adapter) and back-end interface (to disks, via ATA, Fiber Channel, PATA, SCSI, SAS, or SATA). Which is the accepted, common usage.

A certifications forum would be a good idea here at TPU, although I personally wouldn't be in it. Beauty of running your own business and not having to show off any certs. :laugh:

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

DanTheBanjoman said:
Is A+ eally as simple as it always seems? Perhaps I should just take the exam and put it on my CV

Uhh go take a practice test and let me know what you think.

Deleted member 3 · Mar 9, 2010

DirectorC said:
The other options are ATA and High Speed ATA.

And how don't SCSI and SATA support two drives per controller? ' C O N T R O L L E R ' is the CHIP not the PLUG/PORT right?!

Personally I would say the controller is the device that reports itself to the BIOS, ie no matter the amount of chips it uses or how it is constructed. The average IDE RAID controller uses cheap IDE chips, several depending on the amount of ports it has. The BIOS and OS will only detect a single device though. I would say that is the controller. In fact, I have a 6 port SATA controller which has 3 sil chips on it, they are detected as a single device though. ie it is a single controller built using 3 chips.

Deleted member 3 · Mar 9, 2010

DirectorC said:
Uhh go take a practice test and let me know what you think.

Linky?

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

DanTheBanjoman said:
Linky?

Ehh here's one http://www.proprofs.com/certification/comptia/a-plus/exams/HW-E1/exam.shtml

brandonwh64 · Mar 9, 2010

ran through the test real quick and passed

if i sat down and studied alittle I would be able to pass way better than this

Deleted member 3 · Mar 9, 2010

That is quite some outdated test. Took me just over 10 minutes, did not know some things about the printers corona and gave only one answer to questions that wanted 2

Either way I passed easily, can't imagine this being of much value though.

DirectorC · Mar 9, 2010

DanTheBanjoman said:
Either way I passed easily, can't imagine this being of much value though.

That's what I'm saying. I've been working on computers for 15 years, know programming languages, and was a Linux guru but I almost fail with these tests and their questions about IRQ assignments and printer BS. These tests suck. I feel bad for all the companies hiring on-site techs with these pieces of papers.

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A+ question: Which PC drive interfaces don’t support two drives per controller?

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