How many IDE Hard Drives can you have in a computer?

[leglez]

I got another hard drive yesterday (my second hard drive) and so I opened my case and replaced the IDE cable going to my hard drive with one with 2 ports from an old computer. And now I might be getting another hard drive from another friend and was wondering where I can buy an IDE cable with 3 connectors so that I dont have to use the other connector for my 2nd optical drive (when I get it)

If I can't have 3 hard drives on 1 cable can I get a pci card that adds a couple ide spots to plug in more cables something like this but without the 1394 and usb ports?

 

[Bozo Galora]

there are 26 drive letters available in DOS, and 2 are taken (A+B) so that leaves 24.
obviously to use as many drives as posssible, one must only make one partition per drive.

there is no 3 device IDE cable

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...em-details.asp?EdpNo=1070704&CatId=508

 

[leglez]

Ok thanks just what I needed

 

[TeeJay1952]

If you fill your PCI slots with IDE contoller cards you should be able to add quite a few.

 

[Tostada]

Each cable connects to one IDE channel. You can only have 2 IDE drives per channel (one is called master, one is called slave). Most motherboards come with 2 IDE channels (primary and secondary). Generally speaking, you can have 3 hard drives and 1 CD-ROM connected in a standard PC. There are a number of aftermarket cards which will add additional hard drives, but the price of such a card will probably be a waste for your purposes since you would probably be better off spending the money on a new, bigger single drive.

Given the kinds of questions you have, you should probably be googling for hard drive FAQs, hard drive basics, or something like that. You might want to dig through the reference section on StorageReview.com:
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/confChannels.html

 

[So]

Plus, if you're looking into an add in card for additional drives, there is no reason not to go SATA

 

[Lord Evermore]

Actually you could go with more than 24 drives, if you could fit them in. Use RAID.

Assume you have a motherboard with 7 PCI slots (I know, there might be one SOMEWHERE) and onboard graphics. Plug in an IDE controller RAID supporting 4 drives. Now you've got up to 28 drives; RAID a few of them and you've got it down to the maximum number of drives visible to Windows.

You could even go higher. 3Ware makes a 12-port, 12-drive controller. 84 drives in one PC.

Of course, if you're not using Windows, you don't need to bother with the drive letter limitation.

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Actually you could go with more than 24 drives, if you could fit them in. Use RAID.

Assume you have a motherboard with 7 PCI slots (I know, there might be one SOMEWHERE) and onboard graphics. Plug in an IDE controller RAID supporting 4 drives. Now you've got up to 28 drives; RAID a few of them and you've got it down to the maximum number of drives visible to Windows.

You could even go higher. 3Ware makes a 12-port, 12-drive controller. 84 drives in one PC.

Of course, if you're not using Windows, you don't need to bother with the drive letter limitation.

how much is that going to suck when he comes across his 85th drive? thats gonna being annoying

 

[leglez]

I just need IDE because I don't have enough money to be making a lot of upgrades. My feind is giving me 2 free hard drives. He has already given me 1 and will be giving me the other next week and neither are SATA so unless there is an IDE to SATA adapter for a hard drive I would find it kinda useless to get SATA

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: leglez
I just need IDE because I don't have enough money to be making a lot of upgrades. My feind is giving me 2 free hard drives. He has already given me 1 and will be giving me the other next week and neither are SATA so unless there is an IDE to SATA adapter for a hard drive I would find it kinda useless to get SATA

There are such adapters. But if you've got enough ports, there's not much point to upgrading just for that.

 

[bob4432]

get a dual channel scsi card, either u160 or u320 and connect 30

 

[networkman]

Suffice to say you're going to have alot more issues dealing with the extra power required before you need to start worry about running out of drive letters.

 

[Aluvus]

It depends on the volume of the case, unless you're willing to be flexible about the "in a computer" requirement.

 

[ARK007]

Keep in mind that each additional hard drive draws power and generates heat. You?ll either run out of power or overheat your system long before you run out of drive letters.

 

[Auric]

Surely, the drive letter limitation could easily be circumvented by mounting as folders?