a 3rd hard drive to my computer

[bballnut]

hey everyone,

I was just wondering if it is possible to add a 3rd hd to my computer? I already have a 120gb and 160gb but I ran upon a 120gb real cheap.
I am getting ready to do a friends wedding video, etc and could use the extra space.
what are my limatations to doing this or should I forget it and find a external drive. I already perchased the drive. I can always use it on a older computer that I use.
I am running a sony computer with dvd-/+writer and dvd drive, and floppy. windows xp home ed. everything is working great on this computer now.

thanks for your input.

[waheed]

Is it a IDE or SATA? Are your other HD's IDE or SATA?
What make is your motherboard.

Too little info to go on.

[HatchetMan]

While we are on the subject waheed and bballnut, I want to do the same thing. Right now I got 2 S-ATA's on an ASUS P5P800 mobo, want to add a third, so a P-ATA. Unsuccessful so far - https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=273034

[rkr1958]

hey everyone,

I was just wondering if it is possible to add a 3rd hd to my computer? I already have a 120gb and 160gb but I ran upon a 120gb real cheap.
I am getting ready to do a friends wedding video, etc and could use the extra space.
what are my limatations to doing this or should I forget it and find a external drive. I already perchased the drive. I can always use it on a older computer that I use.
I am running a sony computer with dvd-/+writer and dvd drive, and floppy. windows xp home ed. everything is working great on this computer now.

thanks for your input.

Yes ... A suggestion, buy a PCI controller card so that all your drives can run on its own channel.

My home pc is currently running with 4 internal hardrives (2-SATA & 2-IDE), 1 DVDRW IDE and 1 DVDROM IDE. The four IDE drives are running on their own IDE channel and the 2 SATA are configured in a RAID-0 configuration. I have a PCI IDE controlled card and run all four IDE on its own channel. Very stable and works great.

By the way, I have a small 60-GB fifth (external) firewire hardrive.

[HatchetMan]

A suggestion, buy a PCI controller card so that all your drives can run on its own channel.

My home pc is currently running with 4 internal hardrives (2-SATA & 2-IDE), 1 DVDRW IDE and 1 DVDROM IDE. The four IDE drives are running on their own IDE channel and the 2 SATA are configured in a RAID-0 configuration. I have a PCI IDE controlled card and run all four IDE on its own channel. Very stable and works great.

Sounds very interesting and I would like to do the same. Is this a good card to do 2 IDE/P-ATA 100 drives in RAID 1?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102050&ATT=Hard+Drive+Controll...3r#DetailSpecs

[thevoelk]

Unlss you want it, you don't need the RAID. A simple PCI IDE controller without RAID capapbilities will suffice, and cost you less.

[HatchetMan]

Unlss you want it, you don't need the RAID. A simple PCI IDE controller without RAID capapbilities will suffice, and cost you less.

I thought about the simple route for like $25, but then I read about the mirroring of RAID 1 and now I gotta have it.

[rkr1958]

Unlss you want it, you don't need the RAID. A simple PCI IDE controller without RAID capapbilities will suffice, and cost you less.

Agreed, really no need for Raid. The only reason I'm running my internal SATA drives in Raid 0 is because my Motherboard supports it. I only use that drive pair as a data drive for video projects and such.

The PCI IDE controller card I have (can't remember the brand) I bought over 3-years ago from Best Buy for $30. Nothing fancy by no means and very basic but has served me well. I connect one internal IDE harddrive (the one with my O/S & applications) and my DVD writer to the two IDE channels on my motherboard. I connect the second internal IDE harddrive (data drive) and my DVD-ROM drive to the PCI IDE controller card channels. Again, each IDE drive is the only drive on its IDE channel.

By the way, Raid 1 runs two drives in as a mirror of each other. Both drives contain the same data, that way if one goes down you still have your data. In effect, Raid 1 takes a pair of drives (e.g., 2 x 160-GB) and gives you ONE drive that's 160-GB. The "other" drive is used to backup your data. Raid 0 runs two drives in stipped mode. 2 x 160-GB drives in Raid 0 would appear as one 320-GB drive. Raid 0 is fast, a file is written (stipped) across both drives. However, if you lose any one of the drive-pair you lose the entire 320-GB of data.

[bballnut]

thanks for the ideas.
I will try this and post if I have any other questions later.

[redwudz]

One thing to note with PCI IDE controllers is not all of them will work with slower optical drives. If you get a IDE 133 or 100 only card, your slower 33 and 66 devices won't generally work. Read the fine print and look for 'Ultra ATA/66, Ultra ATA/33' support if you plan to use a CD or DVD drives with it. I use a Promise ULTRA133 TX2 and it works fine with DVD, CD drives.

Also I would recommend a IDE 133 card even if your drives are only IDE 100 because if you buy a new 133 drive you may not be able to use it's full potential.

[HatchetMan]

redwudz - I was looking at that card. Is it or is not compatible w/ XP SP2 Home? The one I was looking at, people were reporting to have to dl a driver.

[redwudz]

HatchetMan, I've ran it with W98, W2000, XP home, XP Pro, SP1 & 2 and it's in my new computer with XP64 running the optical drives. I've never had any problems with drivers. This card has been around for a while, so most issues have been addressed.

The instructions say to install the drivers when you install the OS, but that's only important if the boot drive is on it. I think I did put in the latest drivers after a while, but the XP OS drivers seem to work fine with it by themselves.

It's a good choice if you want to run optical drives and HDs, or save your motherboard IDE bus for the harddrives and put the optical drives on it.

EDIT: Link to a data sheet PDF file of the card: http://www.promise.com/marketing/datasheet/file/Ultra133tx2DS_v3.pdf