3 HD and only 2 IDE channels, what to do?

[przemekj]

Hi there!
I've bought 3 IBM hard drivers (60, 80 and 120 G) for my new "super PC". The idea behind is to use 80G as the system (+programs), 60G for my data (+ games, etc), and 120 G purely for video editing. My problem is that I've just realised that my motherboard (ASUS P4B533-V) has (as any other motherboard) only 2 ATA 100MB/s IDE channels, each with 2 connections, meaning 1 channel for DVD writer + DVD reader and the second for 2 hard drives. What shall I do in order to connect the third hard drive? Buy an Ultra ATA/100 PCI IDE Card, put in an empty PCI slot and connect my third hard drive to it? If yes, then which one, in order to get the most performance? Does it make sense to think about RAID card? Thank for the help, I am looking forward to receiving your advice!

 

[Clarentavious]

Yes, get an ATA-100 controller. I wouldn't bother with RAID unless you are (or originally were) planning on setting up a RAID array.

Promise generally makes the best controllers when it comes to these kinds of things. Though Highpoint is ok too. There's also AMI, though I wouldn't really bother with them.

Just a standard ATA-100 IDE controller (with like 2 connnector ports) should cost like $50 or less, no big expense.

BTW, just as advice to forewarn (no offense), in my opinion you made a mistake by going with IBM. Their earlier really large drives (the Deskstar series GPX 60 and 75) crashed like crazy. They were the first to try and get the really high density drives out (back around the year 2000), and they had too many heads with the platters.

I don't know if they made newer models without some of the problems.

I would recommend Maxtor. As far as I know (even though it doesn't help much), they are the only company in the world currently making drives on the ATA-133 interface, and drives with liquid bearings (very quiet).

Western Digitals drives are intentionally programmed to give out about when their warranties expire (I do not like this kind of business), and their replacement drives do not last long.

Samsung generally makes cheap products. They are in all kinds of storage business (they make things like memory, CD-Rs, and CD-ROMs as well, not just HDDs). They are fairly generic like and OEM. In the harddrive area they mostly concentrate on making mass storage (they are doing their 60GB per platter now), while giving little thought to performance (which is why most of their drives are at 5400 RPM).


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Benchmarks don't lie

 

[przemekj]

Thanks for the help. I've already bought them (checked with toms review, there supposed to be OK). What do you suggest, which drive where (directly to IDE or via PCI)?

 

[8235k8hta]

by a raid card. global of 8 connectors + raid 0 stripping.

 

[sturm]

u said WD drives are "are intentionally programmed to give out about when their warranties expire (I do not like this kind of business), and their replacement drives do not last long." i think ur wrong. i have a 1.2 gb from 1992 that is still kicking 2 30 gb and 1 40 gb that ive never had any problems with. maby u just got unlucky.

 

[Lowlypawn]

<font color=blue>"Western Digitals drives are intentionally programmed to give out about when their warranties expire" </font color=blue>

Really! I have had great experiences form WD hard drives and wouldn’t hesitate to buy another.

Just exactly how did u come to this conclusion?



<font color=green>1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4? 4.Nxe5?? Qg5 5.Nxf7 Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Nf3#</font color=green>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

also, bear in mind that you will get best performance with each IDE drive on a seperate channel.
so one the mobo primary, then one on each of the PCI card's ports.

<font color=blue>All religions are true, for a given value of 'true' - Terry Pratchett.</font color=blue>

 

[WingDing]

RAID is not really a sensible option as your hard drives are of different capacity. Also you would effectively but turning two drives into one if you stripe them, which would mean you lose separate drives for each function (unless you create separate partitions).

A good RAID PCI card should also include a JBOD (just a bunch of disks) option, so you could retain a RAID option in future while getting the setup you need immediately. For that reason you might want to consider getting a RAID card (with the above functionality) instead of a simple IDE controller card.

Sex is great but it's no substitute for the real thing.....