4 hard drives - Promise Ultra 133?

[IJustAte]

I just bought a 4th hard drive (seagate 200 gig ultra ata/100), but I don't have enough IDE connectors. Someone told me I need to buy a Promise Ultra 133 card, which will allow me to add another hard drive. Is this correct? What is the exact model I need to buy?

My setup:
Antec SX630II case
cpu: athlon XP 1700
m-board: epox ep-8rda
ram: 256mb pc2700 333mhz ddr
hard drives: maxtor 80gb, seagate 120gb, western digital 120gb
video: radeon 9200
burner: tdk cd-rw

thanks very much,
Kenny

 

[SKORPI0]

PROMISE PCI to ATA Controller ...l "ULTRA133 TX2" -OEM - $34.99 + $5.50 fedex shipping @ Newegg

 

[DaveSimmons]

I have one of these (ultra 133 TX2) in my lossless FLAC music server, controlling 2 x 250 GB maxtors, plus the other 2 drives I attach every so often for backing them up.

It's been working for over a year and a half with zero problems. The server is running Windows 2000 server (I also use it for software development).

 

[Anubis]

i have the ultra 100, and i have 4HDDs

works like a charm, it just makes start up times longer

 

[Zepper]

Actually I would get a Silicon Image based card. They are much more flexible, cheaper and can do RAID in the future if you choose. You can get a generic like the Syba from dealsonic.com for <$25. shipped or a name brand (LSI from newegg et al.).
.bh.

 

[Zepper]

Duplicate, sorry.

 

[stillkicking]

Good question. I have been looking at doing the same thing. Why are some of you recommending the 133 card over the 100? On NewEgg there is around a $7 or so difference in price. Does the 133 offer anything besides accepting the few 133 drives out there?

How does the Promise card fall into the line up when you boot your computer. Is it automatically "seen" after the hard drives on the mobo. What about access times when working with the drives connected to the Promise card? Is there a noticeable difference in speed? Thanks.

 

[0roo0roo]

yea ive been using silicon image. gets the job done, and about 20-25 shipped

 

[Jeff7]

Look for a PCI IDE controller. As far as I can tell, there's not much difference between them anymore - maybe a little difference in CPU usage, but really not much. Some of them don't work with ATAPI devices though - things like CD-ROM drives, etc. But they can just stay attached to the motherboard's IDE controller anyway.

How does the Promise card fall into the line up when you boot your computer. Is it automatically "seen" after the hard drives on the mobo. What about access times when working with the drives connected to the Promise card? Is there a noticeable difference in speed? Thanks.

The motherboard's devices are seen first, then the Promise card is initialized, and its devices recognized.
Thus far, I think that the access times are the same. I've not tested them, but neither the devices on the motherboards, nor the Promise controller, seem to be slower than any of the others.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: stillkicking
Good question. I have been looking at doing the same thing. Why are some of you recommending the 133 card over the 100? On NewEgg there is around a $7 or so difference in price. Does the 133 offer anything besides accepting the few 133 drives out there?

How does the Promise card fall into the line up when you boot your computer. Is it automatically "seen" after the hard drives on the mobo. What about access times when working with the drives connected to the Promise card? Is there a noticeable difference in speed? Thanks.

the HDDs is first detected in boot up in dos after the IRQ check thingie

my start up time is longer because i have 300 Gigs connected to mine and windows has to wait for teh drives to tell it what is going on, thats the only area that is slower

access times and transfer times are the same as normal HDDs

u have 4 HDDs 2 on the mobo master/slave
and 2 on the IDE card both Masters and i cant tell what drive im on unless i liik and remember where they are connected

 

[imported_Sasha]

In one of my PC's the mothboard (Abit IT7) has a four-channel highpoint RAID controller for supporting eight (8) IDE devices. I currently have four Maxtor 160GB on it. Seems to work really well. I know Highpoint makes this chipset in card-form, too.

 

[Drifter]

Originally posted by: stillkicking
How does the Promise card fall into the line up when you boot your computer. Is it automatically "seen" after the hard drives on the mobo. What about access times when working with the drives connected to the Promise card? Is there a noticeable difference in speed? Thanks.

I notice a difference in speed.Then again I'm still running my Abit BH-6