Adding more SATA drives?

[SawTooTH]

Okay I dont have the problem yet but in a couple of weeks Im getting my new PC. Its already fitted with 2 SATA drives Raid 0 and will have the OS win XP pro preloaded plus whatever optimisations the manufacturer (Alienware) has done. Now I have 2 120 GB SATA drives in my current machine. Is it possible to add these without disturbing the new set up?

If I just plug them in will they be detected as additional drives or would I have to mess up the preloaded system and redo the RAID set up?

It wouls seem stupid to have to do that and although thats what I resorted to have to doing with my current system I put that down to my naivity.

 

[smurkin]

I'm not sure you can put them on the same RAID controller...(edit/ scratch that...it might work...I think you have to add a new disk using the controller software for it to be included in the array)....the mobo might have additional SATA connectors on it for a standard controller


whatever, my solution at home was to just network the old and new pcs and share the old pc's (RAID) drives...that way I use my old pc as an archive - you can even run programs off the old machine over the network - the old pc also works as a print server...

 

[Dr_Weasel]

Dont most raid controllers only allow 2 disks per controller? The last mobo I got that supported 4 sata drives had two different raid controllers. If yous is like that I dont see why you cant bung the other two disks on the other controller....

 

[SawTooTH]

I,m not sure tbh but its a ABIT AV8 - VIA K8T800 Pro Motherboard . I,ll check to see if thats the case.