Maximum number of IDE devices?

[86plymouthcolt]

What is the maximum number of IDE devices a motherboard will support? Fedex is delivering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe in a few days.

I have a 80 GB WD, 2 x 20 Gb Maxtor's, Plextor burner, and a Lite-on 16x DVD-ROM.

The Asus has two serial ATA (raid0/1) and two UltraDMA ports.

Can I connect all these devices?

 

[Iron Woode]

Unless your drives are serial ATA, your are stuck with 4 IDE devices. Not sure if there is an adapter.

But thats only for the ide channels that come with most MBs. You can always add an IDE card to allow more ide devices.

 

[86plymouthcolt]

Hmmm...I think Abit sells an adapter for the serial ATA...thank you.

 

[blindspot]

which IDE card?

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: blindspot
which IDE card?

Promise, Belkin, Abit, Asus, etc.... They are just ATA133 cards.

 

[Nohr]

I saw that Directron has SATA adapters for IDE hard drives. Only place I've seen them so far. They're $34, a little too pricey for me.

link

 

[jamesbond007]

I have a Promise Ultra133 TX2 IDE controller card in my system. It works great. When I didn't have SCSI at the time, I put my HDDs on the Promise and my other peripherals (CDROM, CD-RW) on the motherboard's onboard controller. This way, you can have 8 IDE devices. BTW, CDROMs and other ATAPI devices work well on the Promise, so you're not just limited to HDDs.

Good luck!