5 IDE drives in one computer....suggestions?

[OfficeDude]

Is it possible to do this? Right now I have a DVD, CD-RW, and hard drive.........I want to slap in another hard drive and a CDROM drive as well........I've only had this system running for about a week and I already ate through 15GB of my 40GB hard drive and the DVD drive just can't measure up to a CDROM drive when reading non-DVD discs Plus I had a CDROM drive die on me and the only reason I could see for it doing so would be because of wear and tear, and I don't want to kill my DVD drive that way. I used an Afreey 56x CDROM drive in my old computer and I'd like to use it in my new computer. Is their a PCI card you can buy so you can use more then 4 IDE drives? If so, what would you recommend I buy?

 

[AMDPwred]

Only 15GB of 40GB? Your fine. Especially when you think that most of your software was probably just installed. I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[sohcrates]

you can simply get a pci IDE controller. i'd suggest a Promise ATA100 card...you can get them pretty cheap these days.

 

[CaesarCaligula]

I would suggest getting a promise raid card, and get the another of the same HD you already have and do Raid 0 for 80 gigs. it only costs a little more then just the normal ata card.

 

[OfficeDude]

Yeah, but that's just in one week. I'm planning on buying Microsoft Encarta which is over a GB itself, and I'm having Satellite internet installed for Christmas so I'll be downloading tons of stuff since I won't be confined to crummy 56k speeds anymore I'd like to have my MP3s stored on the hard drive as well, it would be a pain to always insert discs to listen to music on my 5.1 speaker setup.

 

[AA0]

why on earth would anyone need 3 CD drives for?

 

[CaesarCaligula]

I think he wants 1 dvd rom, 1 cdrw, and one that rips really fast, like the Kenwood 72x

 

[amature]

Raid 0? If I recall correctly, if any drive in Raid 0 fails, all data is lost. I think it is better to avoid Raid 0 if you do not need it. Drives do fail.

 

[CaesarCaligula]

for 2 drives(in raid), its only thing that he can do thatll give him more space. IF he wants to do to buy 2 more drive he can do raid 5

 

[OfficeDude]

<< why on earth would anyone need 3 CD drives for? >>


Dude, you must have skimmed through my post.......My regular old CDROM drive mops the floor with my DVD drive, and it's rated to have 48x CD read capabilities. It takes practically twice as long to search for files on a disk, and the speed of the DVD is very jolty, it repetitively speeds and for a few seconds, then drops down to a slooow speed....while my regular CDROM drive can keep up with a pretty fast pace constantly.

 

[OfficeDude]

The CDRW is rated at 40x and the DVD is rated at 48x(both made by Lite-On), so it's probably going to be worse if I use that to read regular CDs.....and I wouldn't use it anyway because it's not a smart idea to use it on a regular basis to read CDs because that's not what it was made for, it was made for writing to CDs, duh..........Better to stick with using drives that are made for reading discs is my motto(Plus Mark Minasi, author of "The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide" said it was a bad idea to that as well.

 

[AA0]

hm, I don't think you understand the difference between DVDs and CDs. Your DVD drive won't be slower reading CDs from the same speed drives, and you won't have problems later on.

 

[OfficeDude]

<< hm, I don't think you understand the difference between DVDs and CDs. Your DVD drive won't be slower reading CDs from the same speed drives, and you won't have problems later on. >>


I think you don't understand that you are a dumbass. Are you so nieve/dumb that you think that all DVD/CD drives are automatically equal in performance if they have the same rated reading speed? Their is something called access time chump, and I can tell you with experience that a generic 50x CDROM drive is DEFINITELY slower than some brand name 50x drives. Even if they have the same access time, they still can have different performance levels, because of things like the sustained data transfer rate and max burst speed, etc. That's where my DVD drive is lacking, and that's why I want to use my CDROM drive. And my CDROM is rated faster than the DVD drive anyway, they are not the same rated speed when it comes to reading CDs. Like I said in my first post, I killed a CDROM drive before because of rigorous use....are you saying that a CDROM/DVD drive NEVER dies because of rigorous use? Get a clue........

 

[bigshooter]

Dude, don't be such an assho!e. You didn't even say what kind of DVD you had. If it was a good brand like Toshiba or Pioneer, cdrom access speeds and mp3 ripping should be very good.

 

[OfficeDude]

<< hm, I don't think you understand the difference between DVDs and CDs >>


And that's not being an "assho!e"?

 

[OfficeDude]

<< Dude, don't be such an assho!e. You didn't even say what kind of DVD you had. If it was a good brand like Toshiba or Pioneer, cdrom access speeds and mp3 ripping should be very good. >>


Yes I did, look above. I said that both my CDRW and DVD drives are made by Lite-On.

 

[zzzz]

if you are looking for a pci card, get a cheap ata-66 promise card. You can find it for about $10- $15. ( try pricewatch or the for sale forum) The ATA-100 card can be had for about $25-30.

 

[OfficeDude]

Before I forget, thx for the suggestions all.

 

[Jiggz]

You can put all the number of drives you can fit on your system as long as you have enough PCI slot to install controller cards. Or if you dont mind spending $$$ then get SCSI. Connect all ATAPI drives to the mobo ide and then all HDD to disk controllers. Two Promise ATA 100 card will give you a total of 8 HDD. If that's still not enough, then get another controller for a total of 12 HDD. Make sure you have ACI enabled on your system coz you will run out of IRQ's. This is where SCSI comes in and better than ide.