onboard IDE + IDE controller card=5 IDE devices

[Biggerhammer]

Hello all.

Yesterday, I had three HDDs and a cd burner in my computer, plus one HD waiting on a shelf. I've installed an old Maxtor ULTRA-100 IDE controller card and the drive from the shelf. Win2Kpro found and installed the new hardware with plug&pray, and so far, everything looks good.

My questions:

• Has anyone tried this? I've always just assumed that four IDE devices was the ceiling.

• What's the maximum number of IDE devices that's safe to use? I have a few of these IDE controller cards.

Thank you!

 

[Carbonadium4]

should have no problem unless teh cards conflict with each other.. then ur out of luck..

 

[SKORPI0]

It should work with no problem. I have a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro mobo that only has 2 IDE ports, no Raid/IDE3 or 4. I added a Promise Ultra TX2 card for 2 extra drives.

The limit would be how many you can fit inside the case and how many IDE controller cards you can use (available PCI slots). Of course, heat and power supply requirement should be accounted for. Make sure that there is adequate cooling for these drives.

Max on the onboard IDE is 4, primary and secondary channel. If mobo has raid/ata ide another 4.
IDE controler card - 2 per channel, one master, one slaved.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My music server has 1 optical + 5 hard drives, using the onboard IDE for 2 HD, 1 optical and using a Promise PCI card for the other 3 drives. It's been working fine for over a year.

 

[tiap]

I use a promise card in addition to mb ide with 4 120gigwdse all on masters with removeable trays. Dvdburner and dvd=rom on mb secondaries for well over a year. Use for video editing with no problems. I can even pull out the master hardrive on a channel and leave the optical on the secondary working fine

 

[Biggerhammer]

Sweeeet! Terabyte here I come