2 HDD's?

[Brigade]

I have Asus P4B533-E motherboard with 120GIG WD 8MB hard drive. I am running out of space around 6GIGs left so I am thinking of getting another HD. I heard that if you have 2 HDD on the same cable it gets slow and you might have problems? I also heard about RAID, although I dont know anything about it. What is the opimal way to set up another HDD without ANY problems.

 

[bob4432]

i too have heard the same exact thing, but in my experiences with benchmark programs, you can't tell the difference. i have also heard the same with a cd-rom and cd-rw, but i do it all the time with no problems. with raid, in extremely simple terms you can make the computer think you have one hdd when you really have 2, the data can be striped which means both hdds get different data and greatly increases hdds speed, or you can do mirror which in effect creates a mirror image as you work and you can also do combinations of both with certain raid configurations.

 

[EeyoreX]

I heard that if you have 2 HDD on the same cable it gets slow and you might have problems?

This is no longer true with today's hard drives and optical drives. Unless one of the drives on the ribbon cable is operationg in PIO mode. So long as you use a modern hard drive (ATA66/100/133) and the proper ribbon cable (80 wire, not 40 wire) you will get no performance loss, as each drive will operate independantly and at it's own max speed.

RAID seems to be a current fad for desktop use. There are serveal kinds of RAID, for good info check out the FAQs here at AnandTech. Basically, I think RAID on the desktop (except in specialized cases, like a heavy video editing machine) is pointless and doesn't grant all that much in terms of speed benefits.

If you are just looking to add more space you can simply get another internal hard drive and add it to the exsisting chain (make sure your jumpers are set right). For an even easier storage upgrade, you could also get an external hard drive of some kind (either a ready made one, or an external enclosure and any hard drive you want) and plug that in via USB2.0 or IEEE1394. Either way, you should have no problems whatsoever (so long as you use the proper cables, and have room on your IDE controllers)

\Dan

 

[MasterFlash]

I don't think having 2 HD's on the same cable is a big deal if they're similar speed drives. But if you're worried about it, you can get an IDE PCI card ($30-50), and connect your new drive to it. That's what I've do to add extra HDs and keep them on single cables.

 

[ledzepp98]

with 2 hard drives on the same cable, you will notice a slowdown when copying files from one drive to the other (or basically using both drives at the same time). you should set up the second drive as a master on the second channel, with the cd-rom drives as the slaves (recommended location will vary depending on your usage pattern and if you use a cd burner). also, with the second drive on the second ide channel, you should put the swapfile on the second drive.