Add an IDE Hard Drive to Dell 4700 with SATA C drive?

[AuctionHugh]

OK, have a cheap dell 4700 with an 80 gig SATA drive as C with Xp home on it.

Not thinking, I got in on the 160 gig for $30 AR plus tax deal on a maxtor IDE drive at best buy last week.

I guess the 4700 only has one IDE bus.

Easiest thing will be to put the IDE hard drive on the same bus as the CDRW.

1. Will that slow the hard drive down?

Could get an IDE to SATA converter dongle like this one fairly cheap: http://www.acortech.com/.sc/ms/dd/11123...E%20Interface%20Adapter%20SD-SA2IDE-A1

2. Are these adapters a hassle? Will I run into other problems later if I use this adapter then have the 160 gig as a D drive?

3. Any other choices I have not thought of?

Thanks so much!

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[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Just stick it on the IDE channel with the CDRW. Just make sure you set one as master and the other as slave. IDE and SATA performance are almost identical. You're just changing the cable when the drive's actual physical speed is what's limiting it.

 

[rkl]

I did the same thing. I purchased this adapter and it works fine.

http://www.bestbyteinc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CBL-SAT-IAD

 

[AuctionHugh]

What I was trying to ask, is I've read that sometimes using putting a fast IDE drive with a slow IDE drive on the same channel will make the fast drive slow down to the slower CD Drive speed. Can anyone confirm?

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Just stick it on the IDE channel with the CDRW. Just make sure you set one as master and the other as slave. IDE and SATA performance are almost identical. You're just changing the cable when the drive's actual physical speed is what's limiting it.

 

[corkyg]

A SATA to IDE adapter should work OK. Here is one I have in my toolkit:

Adapter

I don't see it having any effect on data transfer speed - they are not linked so that one must go through the other. SATA drives are on separate channels.