Six Harddisk in a computer

[divx2vcd]

Hi,

Can anyone help me, I want to add two more Harddisk in my computer
how can I do ? I have already installed 2HDD & 1CD-RW & 1CD-ROM.

Please guide me.

Thanks.

[Solarjetman]

You will need to buy a PCI IDE controller. That will give you another 2 or 4 devices to add, depending on model. But make sure you have an open PCI slot (you should unless the computer is packed to the brim )

Another option is to buy firewire or USB external hard drive cases. This is a more expensive option, but it allows for easily conecting the drives to other computers. Very easy for moving those huge 5GB digital video files.

[darkelf]

Here is my personal suggestion. All you need is an extra PCI slot for this card. I have one and it works well. The only problem I ran into was the dancing card act I had to perform due to the way my motherboard (ABIT KT7-RAID) handled the interrupts. Not the cards fault, my mobos.

Another option is to pick up a mobo that supports onboard RAID, as mine does. With this card installed I was able to run TWELVE IDE devices in my system (4 devices on regular IDE channels, 4 devices with onboard RAID, 4 devices with this card). I needed a 2nd PSU to run the HDDz, but it was worth it. The RAID option only has two drives (raid-0 config for capping).

Highpoint Rocket ATA/133 2 Channel IDE Controller

http://www.computergate.com/products/item.cfm?prodcd=AIDH1332

Promise technology also has several affordable cards of this genre. There are also many off-brands that you can find on Pricewatch.com

Hope this helps.

[aramo]

you could buy a PCI scsi card [$15++] and add SCSI hard disks, however these are generally more expensive than IDE disks. f you don't need to boot from a SCSI disk then the cheaper [non-bios] versions of the SCSI card will do.

[alchemistresearch]

And don't forget to upgrade your PSU if you are thinking of adding so many drives.

[Johny1800]

You can also buy an internal convertioncard which will turn two IDE devices into and internal Firewire conection.

There are around for about 60$

[rlegault]

If you're looking for some speed (withought going SCSI), I sugest getting a PCI Serial ATA controler card.

[rallynavvie]

you could buy a PCI scsi card [$15++] and add SCSI hard disks, however these are generally more expensive than IDE disks. f you don't need to boot from a SCSI disk then the cheaper [non-bios] versions of the SCSI card will do.

Werd, SCSI rocks.

But I think you'd be looking at spending about $100 or more on a SCSI host adapter, and U160 drives are uber-expensive for ones larger than 36GB, even used. More cost-effective to use IDE drives and get a cheap IDE controller.

[ofbarea]

If you do not have enough space inside your case you should consider external firewire drive cases. This option is faster that the USB2 (USB have a large overhead) especially when multiple devices are connected to the same bus.

Firewire (1394a) has a throughput of 50 MB/sec. This is enough for DV video capture, DVD burning and hard disk storage. The limitation is that for DV capture, you cannot write to a disk in the same firewire chain.

But then we have firewire 800 (1394b), witch is as fast as ATA 100 (100 MB/sec) and it has all the needed bandwidth for multiple stuff in the same bus.

Take a look at one of the best cards in this category: http://www.orangemicro.com/fw800pci.html

Of course you will need external firewire 800 cases, but this setup will rock.

[RabidDog]

ditch the CDrom drive, frees up one IDE slot
double the size of the drive you were going to buy
put that on the ide slot
No extra PSU
NO extra card
Bigger hard disc faster than smaller hard disk (double bubble!)