Raid Controler: can you hook up 2 regular IDE devices

[rnimz]

I have a friend who is looking at getting a new machine and wants to hook up 5 IDE devices, I have read that you can hook up two single IDE devices up to an IDE-RAID controller and they will work just like a regular IDE controller, is this right? Or am I way off?
Thanks in advance.

-Reid

 

[MrCoyote]

Yes you can, as long as you can turn off RAID in the BIOS.

 

[kylebisme]

you can hook up 4 single ide devices to a raid controler and it will work just like a regualy ide controler and as far as i know every raid controler is this way, you do not have to disable riad in the bios you simpley never enable raid.

 

[chainbolt]

lol, that's an interesting question:

It depends on the controller: the on-board controllers, for example the Promise Fastrak Lite, allows only for 2 drives. If you have a the full fledged PCI controller, like the Promise Fasttrak 100 or the new TX, you can hook on 4 drives.

If your friend has an on-board controller: it's 3 IDE HDD devices on total
Raid: 2 drives
Direct: 2 drives (master and slave)

If your friend has a full PCI controller: it's 6 drives in total
Direct: 2 drives (master and slave)
Raid: 4 Drives (2 master + 2 slaves)


but wait: could be even more, you could also use the connector for the CD, even though that will run only in ATA 33 mode.

 

[Gandu]

but I am running 4 devices on my regular 2 IDE Controller Mobo. so if your RAID supports up to 4 then you can actually have 8 devices if you have RAID and IDE on one mobo? correct?

 

[chainbolt]

100% correct! If you use a full PCI RAID controller (and not a crippled on-board controller), it should be 8 drives in your case. And of cause you can run it on ALL RAID modes, and not only in 2 modes, like on-board.

2 master + 2 salves = RAID 0

2 master + 2 salves = on 2 IDE connectors

To run a RAID 0 with 4 drives, must be a major delight! I'm going to get my 4th WD Caviar ATA 100 7,200 in a couple of days!

 

[Gandu]

Is the Gigabyte's GA-7DXR capable for running 8 devices?

 

[rnimz]

Thanks for all of the input. Actually he is going to get the epox 8k7a+, which means that it would be a crippled on-board version, but that is still a pretty good replacement for an other controller card that he would have to buy, thanks.

-Reid

 

[chainbolt]

yep, the on-board controller is always crippledm that goes for all boards, it's the same with the
new 7DXR. But considering the few $$ you pay for the controller, it's still a very good deal, if you are basically interested in RAID 0. But for the RAID enthusiast, I recommend the new Promise TX.

 

[chainbolt]

<< yep, the on-board controller is always crippled that goes for all boards, it's the same with the new 7DXR. But considering the few $$ you pay for the on-board controller, it's still a very good deal, if you are basically interested in RAID 0. But for the RAID enthusiast, I recommend the new Promise TX. >>

 

[rnimz]

Yeah, he doesn't want to setup raid though, just hook-up five or six ide devices, I think hes got a CD-RW, DVD, 2 harddrives and a zip drive that he wants to hook-up, so that should work fine for him, and raid is always there if he decides he wants to use it. Thanks again.

-Reid