Just got a 3rd HDD and realised, i've no more IDE slots!

Emerson

So yea, I've just added another Western Digital 160gb to my 2x120gb drives, but problem is, I had no idea I didn't have any free IDE slots so I'm robbing one of my IDE slots (all 4 in use) from a relatively new DVD drive, which ain't good at all.
So I need more IDE slots.. the guy in Maplin didn't seem to have a clue when I asked if it was possible to get a cable with more slots. So am I right in thinking I need an IDE133 controller?
Would I also be correct in saying I don't need a RAID controller unless I want to make duplicates of everything on multiple discs?

So I've got a choice on Komplett:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10210
-Promise €43.50
-Sunsway €20 or
-HighPoint €30
Shall I go for the cheapest?

maxheadroom

Get the cheapest one.

Jammer

maxheadroom wrote:

Get the cheapest one.

maplins have got S-ATA (with RAID) controllers. 45euro iirc

GreyAlien

Used to have a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 never had any problems with it. Good thing with the promise card was that windows xp already had the drivers for it when I was installing xp other wise while you are installing xp you will need to hit F3 (I think) and insert a floopy with the drivers so that it can recognise the controller card.

maxheadroom

Jammer wrote:

maplins have got S-ATA (with RAID) controllers. 45euro iirc

Yes, but hes not looking for S-ATA, he's looking for P-ATA (P stands for parallel or "plain-old" - you can chose )

Likewise, he's not looking to set up a RAID, he just wants to connect an extra hard drive.

tman

i'll sell you my pregnant cat with a spot of the mange.

oh wait... that wouldn't help you

po0k

....when you say you've used all your slots, do you mean the ones on the motherboard?

You should be able to plug in at least 4 ide devices.
You say you've got 2x 120gig drives already. I assume you got another 2 optical drives?
Is there one you can do without?

Also, something to consider:
With hdds of capcity 137Gigs or more you need a 48-bit LBA controller.

seamus

SyxPak wrote:

You should be able to plug in at least 4 ide devices.
You say you've got 2x 120gig drives already. I assume you got another 2 optical drives?
Is there one you can do without?

That's what I was thinking. If you only use a second optical drive so you can copy discs, you be better off ripping ISOs from discs which you can then store on your more than ample 400Gigs of space. Amoi, what do you need with that kind of room?

Emerson

SyxPak wrote:

....when you say you've used all your slots, do you mean the ones on the motherboard?

Yup, on the motherboard.

SyxPak wrote:

You should be able to plug in at least 4 ide devices.
You say you've got 2x 120gig drives already. I assume you got another 2 optical drives?
Is there one you can do without?

Yea, I've a DVD Writer & Reader.. I'd prefer not to leave a perfectly good high spec DVD drive to waste. Copying straight is so much handier/faster than to HDD first

SyxPak wrote:

Also, something to consider:
With hdds of capcity 137Gigs or more you need a 48-bit LBA controller.

Hmm.. didn't know this. I could put the 120gigers on the card if it's a problem. D'ya know if those controllers on Komplett'd be 48bit?

Since I've started utilising my BB connection fully, my HD's have been filling up like there's no tomorrow.. with erm, Linux ISOs

Emerson

Ok.. I see the Sunsway is 32bit.. thats a nono
The HighPoint says its 48bit.
Wonder is the Promise, someone's offered me a Promise second hand

maxheadroom

Emerson wrote:

Hmm.. didn't know this. I could put the 120gigers on the card if it's a problem. D'ya know if those controllers on Komplett'd be 48bit?

The €30 HighPoint one is. I can't find info for the Sunsway one. What motherboard is in your system?

Emerson

It's an Asus A7N8X.. AMD XP2800+ cpu

GreyAlien

The Promise one is 48bit LBA if someone has offered to sell you one it may be slightly older luckily you can update the cards bios. I had to for my 160 gb hard drive. Oh yeah if your adding a 160 gb one be sure to have at least Winxp SP1 installed otherwise the drives full space won't be shown
By the way I have an Asus A7n8x-vm motherboard which is pratically the same as your one and it works fine.

maxheadroom

GreyAlien wrote:

The Promise one is 48bit LBA if someone has offered to sell you one it may be slightly older luckily you can update the cards bios. I had to for my 160 gb hard drive. Oh yeah if your adding a 160 gb one be sure to have at least Winxp SP1 installed otherwise the drives full space won't be shown

the nForce2 has 48bit LBA support, so you'll be fine with the cheap card if you plug the new hard disc into your motherboard.

Emerson

yea.. thanks for info.. Got the drive plugged in already temporarily through the port the dvd player was using.
Got XPsp1 & W2Ksp4 installed on the machine. Both see it as 149GB.. dunno why ignore the overheads and claim 160gb. Marketing i spose

GreyAlien

Emerson wrote:

yea.. thanks for info.. Got the drive plugged in already temporarily through the port the dvd player was using.
Got XPsp1 & W2Ksp4 installed on the machine. Both see it as 149GB.. dunno why ignore the overheads and claim 160gb. Marketing i spose

Its 160gb unformatted, 149gb sounds about right when its formatted. Wish they would tell you the size when its formatted instead.

maxheadroom

well, its actually 149GB ([160 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000] / [1024 * 1024 *1024]) unformatted.

The hard drive companies use the decimal definition of a gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes), whereas windows uses the nearest binary equilavent 2^x, where x is a ridiculously large number)