new computer hard drive upgrade question

[luvvbuzz]

hi i just bought a new computer, it is based on this motherboard http://www.asrock.com/product/product_k7vt6.htm
and it currently has a 120gb harddrive, an amd 3200 cpu and 2 dvd burners.
what i want to do is connect another hard drive as a slave, im not sure what is the best type to buy, as the motherboard page says it has a raid controller onboard and it can use SATA hard drives ( what ever that means ) so i was looking at drives on ebay, im looking to get an 80gb slave drive like this one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5200611216&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
my current boot drive is a maxtor 120gb which is connected via normal ide. so anybody able to advise me on the best kind of set up for my system? ide the slave or connect it using SATA if i can?

[normcar]

A RAID controller is only for setting up a raid of 2 or more disks. One way for the Raid to be set up is as mirror disks, so if one disk fails, the data has a backup on the mirror drive. Most people do not need this, and it is a huge user of disk space. SATA can be used as stand-alone drives (not in a raid array). These drives have a higher data throughput between the drive and the motherboard. These drives are not the master/slave type as are ATA drives. However, SATA drives are not usually the defining limitation for video encoding, but it is usually the CPU. ATA drives are a little cheaper, and fast enough. However the difference in price between an ATA drive and a SATA drive is usually small (about $20). I would not recommend you purchase a drive on Ebay. You do not know if they are problem drives, or refurbished. I would suggest you look for a good sale, or do a pricegrapper.com search and use a reputable dealer. Remember these are harddrives with your data on them, and getting a bad drive is a bad thing.

[luvvbuzz]

hi normcar, thanks for your reply and advice, good point about buying on ebay, but looking at that particular drive on ebay would you say that make and model would be a good drive to have, given the specification it has i.e SATA and speed etc. i guess my question is since my motherboard is SATA enabled, is it worth my while in getting a SATA drive and SATA cables to plug it in etc, or would i be better off buying a normal ATA drive? also having 2 dvd drives and after i get the second hard drive should i get myself a ide controller pci card?

[INFRATOM]

depends on what you want to use your computer for. Raid id good for file server or special purpose , you need from 3 to 5 hard drive for useful type of raid and with 2 HD you won't gain anything. I suggest you invest in a good very fast hard drive like WD Raptor 10,000 RPM and is as fast as raid. use this as main and turn your other 120 gigs into slave or secondary. You will gain lots of speed on your computer good for capturing, editing lots of data intensive work. This type of HD comes with 5 year warranty and they are like scsi which last a long time Not like one year ...

[normcar]

The CPU is usually the bottleneck of video processing. A raid is usually overkill for our type of computers because how much data are you going to lose if a HD goes bad. All you have to do is start the video capture etc at the beginning. SCSI drives are very expensive, and again you can usually purchase several ATA or SATA for the price of a single SCSI drive. The 10,000 rpm drives are also more expensive per GB, and the bottleneck ends up being your CPU. Maxtor has some SATA drives which are long life drives meant to last 5 yrs for about the same price as the SATA drives in the stores (see ZipZoomFly).

To answer your other question, if you only have one IDE connection/cable from your motherboard then you can purchase the SATA drive or buy the Ultra ATA card. I would recommend that you have at least 2 drives in your computer 1 as the from and 1 as the receiving drive. This is the 2nd best thing you can do to increase the video processing speed. The first is buying the fastest processor you can afford.

[luvvbuzz]

i dont do much video capturing, i do the ocassional conversion from dvd to avi. but other than that i burn alot of dvds, video, data etc. if i get my second hard drive at present i will have to slave it on one of the two ide channels on my motherboard, as far as i am aware, unless its SATA then maybe it isnt connected to the ide channel at all? i dont know you see, but by slaving it to a dvd burner then burning a dvd from the hard drive on the same ide channel as the burner im burning on will surely be troublesome? or wont it? i am thinking the data will have to go down the ide cable and back up, but maybe i got it all wrong lol i really dont know what to do for the best. i defo want another hard drive to store music, video and data on. its all a bit confusing really.

[pfh]

For the easiest solution just slave it to your primary ide. Buy another maxtor or Western Digital of the same speed. FYI- I had a Seagate once that refused to connect as slave to a Western Digital but never had problems between Maxtor & WD.

[normcar]

SATA connections do not have anything to do with the IDE channels. They are complete seperate connections.

As for connecting a DVD player or burner to the same cable as a HD, the only problem is when the Player/burner have lower transfer rates (33) that the 100/133 transfer rates of the HDs. The transfer rates of the 2 devices default to the slowest transfer rate. But I believe as long as you use the 80 wire cables which are rated for 100/133, then you should be transfering at the 100/133 rate. I am assuming that the transfer rates of the new DVD players have the 100/133 rates. I assume this because I have HDs on the same cable as my HDs and have no slow down of the HD transfer rate. But beware that most of the first DVD players had transfer rates of only 33 or 66, which would slow down the transfer rate for the HD connected on the same cable.