How do I hook up more then 2 hard drives?

[dp80]

I have (4) 60 gig hard drives I want to use in my new system. I don't quite get how to hook up more then 2. I have a cdrw and dvd on 2 parts of the Ide cable and 2 of the 60 gig drives on the other IDE cable. I heard of RAID but I thought thats only for backing up other drives? Is there a way this can be done, so I can use all 4 drives instead of having 2 of them just sit here? Thanks!!!

 

[amdskip]

What you need is a PCI ide card. They can be had for like $20 and basically it just adds two ide ports to your system. Make sure you get a card that is rated ATA 100 if that is what your hard drives run at.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The Promise 133 TX2 controller (at newegg.com etc.) will let you add 4 more hard drives beyond the 4 devices your motherboard supports, and it also lets you use drives larger than 137 GB.

 

[powerMarkymark]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
The Promise 133 TX2 controller (at newegg.com etc.) will let you add 4 more hard drives beyond the 4 devices your motherboard supports, and it also lets you use drives larger than 137 GB.

I purchased this card, I now have seven (7) hard drives and two ROM drives in my system.......

I like the card and it was simple enough to set up.

Supposed to speed up transfer rates so make sure you put your boot drive connected to it.

 

[Anubis]

i have teh promise TX2 100 card. and it works nicely. i run my 3hd off of it. its nice. but you boottime will be considerbly SLOWER if you dont hook the boot drive to it. because it has to do that ata speed check thingie. kind of annoying but its ok. the bigger teh drive teh slower it gets

 

[dp80]

Thanks for the replies, seems simple enough. Where can I find a good FAQ explaining RAID then, what is the purpose of it? Thanks again, I'm gonna order that PCI card.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: dp80
Thanks for the replies, seems simple enough. Where can I find a good FAQ explaining RAID then, what is the purpose of it? Thanks again, I'm gonna order that PCI card.

Anandtech is a good source

- M4H

 

[powerMarkymark]

Originally posted by: dp80
Thanks for the replies, seems simple enough. Where can I find a good FAQ explaining RAID then, what is the purpose of it? Thanks again, I'm gonna order that PCI card.

Once you read up on RAID....you will probably find out that it's not for everyone. Get the card to add more IDE hard drives but RAID is essentially for those that absoloutely cannot afford to lose data.

 

[azkiwi]

Originally posted by: dp80
Thanks for the replies, seems simple enough. Where can I find a good FAQ explaining RAID then, what is the purpose of it? Thanks again, I'm gonna order that PCI card.

perhaps dp80 is alluding to the numerous on-board RAID setups out there that provide extra IDE channels when not used for a RAID array. These mobos have 4 discrete IDE ports allowing 8 IDE devices to be connected.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark

Originally posted by: dp80
Thanks for the replies, seems simple enough. Where can I find a good FAQ explaining RAID then, what is the purpose of it? Thanks again, I'm gonna order that PCI card.

Once you read up on RAID....you will probably find out that it's not for everyone. Get the card to add more IDE hard drives but RAID is essentially for those that absoloutely cannot afford to lose data.

Slight correction - RAID 1 is for those who cannot afford to lose data, and wish to recover ASAP. RAID 5 has more redundancy, but it can take a little longer to rebuild the data, since it uses checksums and striping, not just mirroring like RAID 1. RAID 0 though - that is usually for those who can afford to lose data. It is only very slightly more risky than running a single hard drive - if one fails, you lose everything But you get better disk performance. Of course, many people don't back up regularly, so that applies to them anyway.