How to add more than 2 SATA drives

[DaisyHead]

Please excuse the dumbo question. I'm planning to use one SATA drive for the System and another SATA for digital image processing (photoshop). Problem is, I need more mass storage for archiving my files. I suppose I could use IDE hard drives but prefer the speed of SATA. How can I add more SATA drives when the MB only supports two? Thanks for all the help.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Unless you are buying Raptors there is no speed difference.

If you must have a pile of SATA, you'll need to buy a PCI controller card.

 

[DaisyHead]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Unless you are buying Raptors there is no speed difference.

Are you saying a 7200 SATA is no different than a 7200 IDE to store files with?

What PCI controller do you recommend? Are these also called "RAID" controller?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yep, 7200 RPM drives don't use even the full speed of ATA/100 so they get no benefit from SATA's potentional ATA/150 speed.

Promise and Siig SATA controller cards can be bought from newegg.com, and you just need a basic controller you don't need RAID. Cost is $20-40.

But if you buy an IDE drive for the OS, plus 2 SATA drives for storage then you save that money and make installing Windows a tiny bit easier (no fooling around with loading a SATA driver floppy during the install).

 

[Zepper]

Most SATA controllers can do RAID as well as just running in regular mode. Look for one based on SiliconImage logic (LSI is one name brand that uses SI logic and Syba is another that is cheaper. SI really seems to have a handle on drive controller technology right now.
.bh.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Yep, 7200 RPM drives don't use even the full speed of ATA/100 so they get no benefit from SATA's potentional ATA/150 speed.

Promise and Siig SATA controller cards can be bought from newegg.com, and you just need a basic controller you don't need RAID. Cost is $20-40.

But if you buy an IDE drive for the OS, plus 2 SATA drives for storage then you save that money and make installing Windows a tiny bit easier (no fooling around with loading a SATA driver floppy during the install).

'tis true. My "150mbs" 250gb 7200rpm 8meg cache benches JUST over ata/100. Only good thing is the single sata connection, this way if you have more than 1 sata drive it wont be bogged down like 2 IDE drives on a single chain.

 

[DaisyHead]

Thank you , gentlemen.