Looking for P4 motherboards that support more than 4 ata devices

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innocentbastard

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May 8, 2002
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I was referred to the Abit IT7 as a possible board for a new P4 system, but I have read some overclockability issues. I then realized this is the only board I have seen that supports more than 4 ata devices. Any there any other boards out there or any other options for running more than 4 devices? I assume there probably is a way around this but I have been spoiled by having it on my board, but this P3 is about at the end of its life cycle.
 
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Buz2b

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2001
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It is relatively easy to have a board that can support more than 4 IDE devices; make sure it has RAID built in. Or, get a separate IDE controller card. There are many more boards today that have built in RAID than there ever have been. It should be easy to find what you want. Are there other options that you are looking for?
 
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innocentbastard

Member
May 8, 2002
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I have never messed with a Raid setup, but isn't Raid just to run two exact drives at the same time? Would you be able to use the Raid Ide without using it in Raid? (did that make sense?) As far as other desires, I think I am going to go with a DDR setup and the P4 1.6A. The only thing else I would possibly need if it is worthwhile is onboard lan instead of going with a NIC.
 
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Buz2b

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2001
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With most RAID setups you can chose not to run them as a RAID configuration and use them to run IDE ports instead. Effectively, that would give you (please, someone better at this come to my rescue), at least Six, and I am thinking maybe Eight IDE devices. The quirk is that the devices attached to the RAID ports that were not being used in a RAID configuration, would have to be attached to a HDD; not a CD or DVD. So, you could have at least 2 HDD's attached to the RAID ports and still have a total of 4 IDE devices attached to the Primary and Secondary IDE ports on the board. That is the sum total of my knowledge here and someone must definately come to my rescue from here on out. ;)
 
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judgmentday1

Senior member
Dec 12, 1999
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I guess just the new raid cards can be used for any IDE or ATAPI device, the old ones DO NOT support CDrom, CDR, etc, just hard drives.
 
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innocentbastard

Member
May 8, 2002
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Originally posted by: Buz2b
With most RAID setups you can chose not to run them as a RAID configuration and use them to run IDE ports instead. Effectively, that would give you (please, someone better at this come to my rescue), at least Six, and I am thinking maybe Eight IDE devices. The quirk is that the devices attached to the RAID ports that were not being used in a RAID configuration, would have to be attached to a HDD; not a CD or DVD. So, you could have at least 2 HDD's attached to the RAID ports and still have a total of 4 IDE devices attached to the Primary and Secondary IDE ports on the board. That is the sum total of my knowledge here and someone must definately come to my rescue from here on out. ;)
Click to expand...

Well that is more than I know...:) And that setup would actually work for me. I am currently planning on using a Maxtor 80gb 7200 ata133 as my primary drive, a Maxtor 80gb 5400 ata 100 as storage and I have heard putting those on the same IDE slows things down, a Lite-on CDRW, and a Lite-on DVD 16x. I don't know if I would ever actually need more than 4 but I don't want to buy a new mobo now and find out 3 months down the line I don't have enough Ide ports. The more I look the more I lean towards that IT7 board though.
 
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gsethi

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2002
3,457
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here are some more board with RAID setup:

These are all DDR boards with newer chipset by Intel (I845E or I845G)

Abit IT7 (I845E)
Abit BD7II-R (I845E)
Asus P4B544-E (I845E)
Epox 4G4A+ (I845G) (i have this one)
Gigabyte GA-8IEXP (I845E)

There are two different RAID chips: Highpoint and Promise.
I would recommend Highpoint if you are getting a board with onboard raid. No problems with it at all. Promise chips gave me a hard time to get them working.
 
sao123

sao123

Lifer
May 27, 2002
12,653
205
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$30 Pick yourself up a Promise ATA 133 IDE controller card. 1 PCI = 4 IDE
 
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VSEKH

Member
Jun 10, 2002
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I would recommend not to connect any cd-roms or dvd-roms to the raid controllers. They do not run in ata33 mode and you will not be able to get into the raid setup to change these settings. I would go with a promise ata100 or ata133 controller and put the hard drives on this controller, which will free up the onboard ide controllers for your cd-rom, dvd-rom, and cd-rw. These promise cards are rock solid when they are used for your hard drives.
 
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