HD in PCI Slot

[ralphp]

I have an AMD 1.2 Gig, 512 RAM, 60 Gig IBM HD, Zip Drive, DVD CD-Rom and CD Burner. That fills up the master and slave slots on IDE 0 and IDE 1. I'd like advice re a PCI controller for second HD. I have room in the case. Is there a problem using a different brand HD here? Is SCSI better and would it be better to have the drive removable? Should this be slam-dunk or are there likely problems regarding compatability, IRQ's or? Price is not a consideration. Any advice appreciated. In case you are wondering why -- I'd like a secure back-up. The IBM hard-drive is one of those that has a class action initiated and there seem to be a number of them failing.

ralphp

 

[thirdeye]

you can get a pretty good maxtor ata100 card (promise chipset) for around 50 bucks and it would give the expansion for 4 more drives. i have one and have no problems w/ it. if you're running XP you don't even need to install drivers for it cuz they are already there. hopefully this helps.

 

[hoihtah]

Is there a problem using a different brand HD here?
no.

Is SCSI better and would it be better to have the drive removable?
the debate between which is better (ide vs. scsi) is older than most of us... or at least it seems.
the bottom line is... get what you need and your wallet allows.
SCSI in most cases will cost you about 2-3 times more than ide.
but it'll be faster in most cases.
a better argument would be to compare between ide raid vs. scsi.
again... the debate is in progress.

as for having drives removable...
why do you need them removed?

if you are concerned about security of your data...
and you are afraid that your hd might fail you...
then get a raid card and mirror two drives.
that way if one fails... you have an exact match to fall back on.

as far as ease of configuring... it depends on your system.
how many irq ports are free... and how many pci ports are being occupied... and by what.


good luck.

 

[Mavrick007]

Unless you are copying files back and forth between drives, doing high data transfers like video or running a heavily used server, you probably don't need scsi. You can get many scsi devices such as a cdr, dvd, hd, scanners, and alot of other devices but if you only plan on buying a scsi hd, it might not be alot of use.

The cost/benefit principle fits here. You can get a much larger drive in IDE than SCSI for less money. SCSI is faster but in apps it only really comes into play in loading of games, copying of high density files, data transfer from digital video, and other similar apps.

What is your primary use going to be? If you presently have scsi hardware, then go scsi or if you think you will do alot of scsi in the future, then go now cause you can always use the hardware again. If not, then get an ide card cause they're cheap and allow you to add more devices now that are more affordable than scsi. Scsi will not make your backups much more secure than ide will cause I've seen scsi 10K drives go belly up. If I had a choice, I would go scsi but I'd rather have some bucks in my wallet more than that. I'm actually thinking about going scsi for everything except hard drives cause they are still too expensive for my tastes.

Whatever your choice, make sure you keep in mind what you will be using your devices for. If it's for gaming, then scsi probably isn't a good choice much more than a better cpu, ram, or a vid card would do you. If it's for professional work where speed is a factor, then go scsi.