How Many Hard Drives Can a Normal Mobo Handle?

[Taz]

I always thought that a standard motherboard came with only enough IDE connectors to attach *only* 4 devices.

Yet, I often see details of systems that have 4 or more hard drives plus a CD and a DVD (or something similar). I recently saw a picture of a guy's rig that had something like three or four WD 1200JB hard dirves in mobile racks in a Lian Li case plus a CD burner and SoundBlaster Live Drive sitting in it. On top of that, I believe he mentioned having another two hard drives in his case to hold even more storage.

How is this possible?

I'm currently trying to get up to speed on the latest components in order to build a new system. I'm trying to read eveything I can, but I guess I missed something as far as IDE connectors on mobos. Can anyone set me straight on how rigs like the above are possible?

Thanks,

-Taz

 

[pillage2001]

2 Ide ports provided by the mobo's chipset = 4 drives
Additional 2 ports from a RAID card = 4 drives

8 drives or more. All you need to do is add an additional controller.

 

[Taz]

Thanks, Pillage. I kinda thought a RAID card would have to be used, but wasn't sure.

I sure would like the flexibility that additional drives would give me, but I really don't want to run a RAID setup if I don't have to. Ideally I'd like to have four drives in the case (or in mobile racks) plus two CD drives. Guess I could do the firewire external route...but not really what I had in mind.

If there's another alternative to adding additional drives, besides a SCSI and/or a RAID card...I'd sure like to know.

 

[powerMarkymark]

I'm using an Abit KR7A 133 Raid motherboard and the highpoint Raid controllers can be used to controll IDE Hard Drives. You are not obliged to Raid the drives if you don't want to. Therefor you can put four hard drives on the highpoint Raid controllers and put another four IDE drives on the regular IDE drive controllers.

 

[Taz]

Ohhhhh....Got it!

Seems that might be just the way to go. Appreciate the help.

-Taz

 

[bozo1]

It doesn't have to be a raid card. You can just add in a non-Raid IDE card to do what you want and save a few bucks if you don't want/need Raid.

 

[NickE]

Take a look at the new Abit AT7 this has quad-channel RAID (8 devices) as well as the normal dual channel IDE (4 devices), giving twelve in total. All this as well as 4xUSB1.1, 4xUSB2.0 and 3xFirewire!