Adding more drives.. what are my options?

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Currently i'm using all 4 of my IDE slots. 2 hard drives, a DVD-Rom and a CD-RW however i want to get another hard drive and a DVD-RW. Now I can replace the DVD-ROM or CD-RW with the DVD-RW but I still want to add another hard drive so i'm going to need some kind of controller card whatever i do so I may as well keep the extra optical drive.

Now my question is, what's best? Getting a SATA controller card and a SATA drive? What about RAID? Will either of these cards let my plug a cd-rom in?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Lazarus]

another option would be a SCSI HDD - uses the PCI slot and doesnt take up a IDE connection.

 

[Chilly]

SCSI is so loud, can you not jus buy a SATA controller and do it that way? plus SATA is well cheap anyway

 

[Xavier]

lol, scsi is no louder at the same specs, it's just 10k-15k scsi drives which are a bit noisier.

 

[fatbusinessman]

Now my question is, what's best? Getting a SATA controller card and a SATA drive? What about RAID? Will either of these cards let my plug a cd-rom in?

I'd say getting a SATA PCI card would be your best bet - partly because SCSI really isn't worth it unless you want a very high-performance HD, partly because it's quite nicely future-proof (in that PATA is on the way out).

Regarding CD drives, you can get hold of SATA CD drives, but there aren't many of them and they're kinda expensive (the only example I can find). My advice is just to get a PATA one and install it in place of one of your older optical drives.

 

[SheepCow]

You could remove the DVD-ROM and the CD-RW, then stick in a new hdd and dvd-rw

 

[smurkin]

you could get a usb or firewire external....quite fancy one myself, in fact....nicely portable, bang per buck (compared to memory sticks) - good for swapping entire music collections

 

[Tom]

Regarding the CD drives, don't buy 'owt new just yet, Blu-ray will be here in a bit.

 

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Thanks everyone.

another option would be a SCSI HDD - uses the PCI slot and doesnt take up a IDE connection.

I took a breif look at SCSI but it's a lot more expensive than SATA or PATA especially since i wont be using it for anything that will really require the extra speed.

Regarding CD drives, you can get hold of SATA CD drives, but there aren't many of them and they're kinda expensive (the only example I can find). My advice is just to get a PATA one and install it in place of one of your older optical drives.

Yeah, i'm not that bothered about having three i just thought since i was going to need a controller card anyway I may as well use it.

You could remove the DVD-ROM and the CD-RW, then stick in a new hdd and dvd-rw

I could, but I like to have a drive to copy from.

you could get a usb or firewire external....quite fancy one myself, in fact....nicely portable, bang per buck (compared to memory sticks) - good for swapping entire music collections

I already have a portable hard drive, my mp3 player and dont need to transfer. Although i'm not really on a strict budget i dont want to spend more than i need to and they are more expensive than internal drives. Also I want to be able to boot from the drive.

Speaking of which, if i bought a SATA controller card, would I be able to boot from the drives on it?

Regarding the CD drives, don't buy 'owt new just yet, Blu-ray will be here in a bit.

And it will be expensive when it arrives Just like DVD-RW's were when they were first launched.


Thanks everyone

/me goes off to look for a SATA controller card.

 

[caLLous]

Backing up smurkin's comments about firewire, I bought an external Maxtor 300gb firewire/usb drive about a while ago and it's great. I too am using all my IDE channels (and the onboard RAID too :\) and it's fookin' marvellous to have the extra storage without having to worry about internal space and/or the need for IDE ports. And it has the funkiest pulsating blue LED on the front as well.

 

[Xavier]

Regarding the CD drives, don't buy 'owt new just yet, Blu-ray will be here in a bit.

LOL, dvd-rom has been around in PCs since about 1998, it's only taken 6 years for games to start appearing on them, what makes you think blu-ray will be any different?

 

[Jupitus]

LOL

Why do you always start your posts with LOL, Xav?

 

[Yoni]

He likes to make people feel humilated thats why Jup

 

[caLLous]

It's the condascending "I think I know so much more about this topic than you do" 'LOL'.

 

[Guest]

Pci Ide card found here http://tinyurl.com/5ujxx

 

[sibanac]

My Maxtor sata card has 2 sata and 1 IDE interface, so you can hook up 2 ide drives and Sata drives.
so you can still use your onboard IDE drives aswell.


Only problem is on some Mobo's (well bioses) wont let you boot of the sata if they find a HD on the onboard controllers