3 or more Hard Drives

[silky62678]

How can i install 3 hard drives, other than getting a Raid PCI controller?

 

[jkipk]

You can install 4 if you don't want a cd drive, but you can go hd1 & 2 on ide0 and cd & hd3 on ide1. If you're running more than just a cd, then you need to get an ata or a raid controller card.

 

[silky62678]

I have 2 hard drives and two cd drives. Trying to install a 3rd HD. Im not sure what a "ATA". Can u explaint to me what it is?

 

[Un4gIvEn1]

silky: since you only have 2 IDE controllers and each can only support 2 devices you will be unable to do that (without buying an addin card). ATA is just the standard that most new drives use.

 

[Bob S]

I run four ide hard drives, a cdrw, a cdr and a dvd without raid. Go SCSI!!

 

[RabidPenguin]

Originally posted by Bob S
I run four ide hard drives, a cdrw, a cdr and a dvd without raid. Go SCSI!!

Real helpful there Bob. Why waste time responding if has nothing to contribute?




silky62678...You have already exhausted the number of drives supported by your current hardware. If you want to intstall more drives you will need to get yourself a PCI IDE controller card.

Check out the PROMISE ULTRA133TX2 CONTROLLER CARD here.

 

[silky62678]

thanks RabidPenguin. that was very helpful

 

[silky62678]

Which is better, a Raid controller or a PCI controller? or are they both the same. Which have better benefits, if any?

 

[RabidPenguin]

Depends on your needs. If you just want to be able to add more drives then get an IDE controller. If you wan the ability to setup a RAID 0 or 1 array then get the RAID controller.

 

[silky62678]

What are the benefits with a Raid setup? What else would i be able to do other than set up more IDE componets?

 

[Friend of Bill]

A Raid set-up will allow increased hard drive performance.

 

[Luna64]

Raid does not always give better performance.

I had dual 120gig HD's running in ATA100 RAID 0, and it was just as fast as either of the drives running by itself.

 

[Zedric]

The controller you will buy will probably support RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10 (or 0,1 or whatever, it's a combined RAID 0 and RAID 1 anyway).

Interesting stuff below:

RAID - Redundant Array of Independant Disks.
There are several types of RAID. Here are the most important.

RAID 0 - Stripe:
======================
Disk 1		Disk 2
------		------
|  1 |		|  2 |
|  3 |		|  4 |
|  5 |		|  6 |
|  7 |		|  8 |
|  9 |		| 10 |
| 11 |		| 12 |
| 13 |		| 14 |
| 15 |		| 16 |
------		------

RAID 1 - Mirror:
======================
Disk 1		Disk 2
------		------
|  1 |		|  1 |
|  2 |		|  2 |
|  3 |		|  3 |
|  4 |		|  4 |
|  5 |		|  5 |
|  6 |		|  6 |
|  7 |		|  7 |
|  8 |		|  8 |
------		------

RAID 3 (unusual):
======================
P = Parity information

Disk 1	Disk 2	Disk 3
------	------	------
|  1 |	|  2 |	|  P |
|  3 |	|  4 |	|  P |
|  5 |	|  6 |	|  P |
|  7 |	|  8 |	|  P |
|  9 |	| 10 |	|  P |
| 11 |	| 12 |	|  P |
| 13 |	| 14 |	|  P |
| 15 |	| 16 |	|  P |
------	------	------

RAID 5:
======================
P = Parity information

Disk 1	Disk 2	Disk 3
------	------	------
|  P |	|  1 |	|  2 |
|  3 |	|  P |	|  4 |
|  5 |	|  6 |	|  P |
|  P |	|  7 |	|  8 |
|  9 |	|  P |	| 10 |
| 11 |	| 12 |	|  P |
|  P |	| 13 |	| 14 |
| 15 |	|  P |	| 16 |
------	------	------

RAID 0: Striping. Two disks where the data is spread across the disks so that every second block is on one of the disks.
+ Improves speed.
- Unsafe.

RAID 1: Mirroring. Both disks contain the same data.
+ Safe.
- Wastes half the space.

RAID 3: A third drive stored parity information (XOR). If one disk dies, the data can be rebuilt using this information. One disk is the parity disk. Can be used for more than 3 disks as well.
+ Safe.
- Requires complicated controller.

RAID 5: Every n:th block in an array of n disks is a parity block. If one disk dies data can be saved. Can be used for more than 3 drives.
+ Safe.
- Requires complicated controller.

RAID configurations can sometimes be combined if the controller alows it. For example, RAID 50, RAID 10 and so on. RAID 50 requires at least 6 drives.

All RAID configurations require the disks to be of the same size. If they are not the size of the array is based on the size of the smallest drive.

If you don't have drives with the same size and want to run them as JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). A bit like RAID 0 except it's not faster than a single drive.

 

[Krux]

raid is useless unless your running a server and it is under a high load alot and in that case two drives doing the work of one will of course be faster but since (im guessing) this is a home computer u won't need that and it would just be a big waste of time and money to set it up. get an pci IDE card and be done with it.


and another thing a raid controller will let u hook Hard Drives only into it, and IDE card will allow u to add another cd-rom if need be.

 

[silky62678]

cool, thanks for the advise