I have GA-990FX-Gaming (1.0). Previous mobos' SATA ports just 'worked'. I’ve built with 2 previous generations/versions. With this one, they just barely work. When I asked about this years ago, I was told [phone call] that SATA drives had to be 'directly' plugged into the mobo. When I countered that it was not possible to do this, the statement was modified so that a 'cable' must be used to connect HD to ports. What was meant by this is that you get only 1 cable. That cable cannot then plug into some 'wall'/socket, on the other side of which is another connector/socket into which a SATA HD might be plugged - which has always previously been allowable, that is, those HD swapping drawers/racks/fixtures 'worked' and they still do on other manufacturer's mobos.
Consistent with this shortcoming is that this mobo BIOS does not have power switching of SATA ports – the user can no longer 'eject'/dismount a SATA drive.
My question is this: do the SATA ports on your newer mobos 'work' as before or are they still 'weak'? From the above, we can see that the answer to this question is revealed when we ask, does current mobo BIOS include specifying switchable power to (some) SATA ports? This setting is either there or it is not.
