Any chance of running 3 IDE drives at once?

[too_much]

This will probably sound stupid, but can I do it? I can't see how, perhaps some form of IDE adapter, but as there's only 2 channels for optical drives, and 2 channels for IDE, I assume not.

It's just that a friend gave me a WD600BB the other day as he simply has no use for it any more, and I figured my WD800JB, Maxtor Fireball 8, and the 600BB would be a lovely combo. If I can't do it, the extra RPM and 20gb provided by the 600BB will still be more than welcome, and the 40gb can become a spare.

Just wondered if there was any "ghetto" solution out there at all, but I'm not optimistic!

regards,
too_much.

[Midknyte]

I think you mean, can you run 3 drives on one ide port? the answer is no. only two drives max per channel.

[too_much]

That's a shame... I was thinking maybe there was some solution whereby you could hook 2 up together and have Windows see them as 2 partitions of one drive... never mind! Could you remove an optical drive and hook a 3rd HDD up to that channel?

Although I wouldn't really want to sacrifice my 2nd optical... hmpf. Oh well, looks like I have a spare 40gb hdd, which is always handy as I've been expecting my wd800 to die soon; been making some rather odd noises!

Thanks anyway,
too_much :)

[Midknyte]

yes you can mix and match up to 4 ide devices. 3 hdds and 1 cdrom,3 cdroms and 1 hdd, etc.

[G Ray88]

You could add a Promise card for some extra IDE devices, might want to add a larger PSU if you add more drives. The Promise card works just like any other IDE controller card as Midknyte said two devices per channel. Good Luck
:)
This is a good place to see how much power you will need.
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

[Midknyte]

yup you can do that too. check before you buy a pci raid card. many of those can only run hdds, not cdroms.

[too_much]

It reocmmended like 340w, lol. I'm running a 450w PSU but it's not a big name. However, another PCI card + 1 more IDE HDD should cope fine with this setup, so I might try that, as I can't sacrifice any of my current drives. Having 3 hdds will be cool :)

regards
too_much

[Johnny Fist]

You can mount the drive in an empty folder if you're using XP, too.

[too_much]

You lost me at "can" :)

[crusious31]

Open Disk Management and right click your new disk. Select the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option and press Add. Select "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder," and point it to the newly empty folder on your original drive.

Now you new hard drive looks like folder on your old hard drive.

[too_much]

What's the advantage of that? :S I still have to have 3 seperately setup HDDs don't I, so why not just run them like 3 normal ones? I need to look into this PCI IDE card thing, it looks like my best option. I currently only have 120gb space, and I could do with the extra 60.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit dense, it all gets a little confusing sometimes.

regards
too_much

[Johnny Fist]

The advantage of doing that is simplicity. It can become difficult to manage drives when you begin using enough of them. Three probably won't be a big deal, but cram six or seven drives in that case and see how efficient you become at data management.

[causticVapor]

Originally posted by Johnny Fist
The advantage of doing that is simplicity. It can become difficult to manage drives when you begin using enough of them. Three probably won't be a big deal, but cram six or seven drives in that case and see how efficient you become at data management.

I guess it depends upon what type of person you are....

[ukulele]

I'm running 3 ATA IDE drives, 2 optical drives and a SATA IDE harddrive. I have a Maxtor/Promise SATA/IDE PCI card. It's no problem keeping track of multiple drives if you give each one a descriptive volume label. Windows will shift drive letters when hardware chages but not the volume labels.

[too_much]

Yeah I mean, if I have 1 more hdd, surely it wouldn't be THAT much more confusing than having 2 :p

[causticVapor]

That -- and dynamic disks.

[jamie31]

it is not a good ideas to run more then 1 hd in your computer. it's much harder to trouble shoot as you can never tell which one is acting up or which is making the most noise :)

better to have 1 250gb then 2 120gb or 3 80gb if you know what i mean. 2 harddrive will consume twice as much power as it spin continueously and well everytime you upgrade better to take theold one out and let it collect dust or use as backup for junk stuff that you dont ' really need at the moment.

hd tend to get noisy after 1 year of use so it is best to upgrade at least once a year and at most 2 years... some are dead in less then 2 years and some if you're lucky last longer then 2.. so it really depends on whether you are lazy or just cheap

I am thinking about getting a 250gb or even 300gb to replace this 160gb that I have for just a few months.. more storage = quieter and faster.. like buying a new car everytime

[ukulele]

Originally posted by jamie31
it is not a good ideas to run more then 1 hd in your computer. it's much harder to trouble shoot as you can never tell which one is acting up or which is making the most noise :)

better to have 1 250gb then 2 120gb or 3 80gb if you know what i mean. 2 harddrive will consume twice as much power as it spin continueously and well everytime you upgrade better to take theold one out and let it collect dust or use as backup for junk stuff that you dont ' really need at the moment.

hd tend to get noisy after 1 year of use so it is best to upgrade at least once a year and at most 2 years... some are dead in less then 2 years and some if you're lucky last longer then 2.. so it really depends on whether you are lazy or just cheap

I am thinking about getting a 250gb or even 300gb to replace this 160gb that I have for just a few months.. more storage = quieter and faster.. like buying a new car everytime

That's a bunch of nonsense. If you keep everything on one drive you are asking for disaster. If the PSU can't handle a couple more drives then it's too small anyway.
There is no need to upgrade a drive ever just because it's old. If it works it works. If it quits, that's why you keep regular backups on other drives. The smart users even keep a ghost image of the OS and installed apps on a spare drive that's not even plugged in. They can be up and running from a boot drive crash in less then a minute.

[dajogejr]

Originally posted by ukulele
That's a bunch of nonsense. If you keep everything on one drive you are asking for disaster. If the PSU can't handle a couple more drives then it's too small anyway.
There is no need to upgrade a drive ever just because it's old. If it works it works. If it quits, that's why you keep regular backups on other drives. The smart users even keep a ghost image of the OS and installed apps on a spare drive that's not even plugged in. They can be up and running from a boot drive crash in less then a minute.

Amen Uke...
I keep a ghost image of my OS Drive on a third IDE drive in my PC...as well as an external USB Drive...just in case.

My thoughts are if you DON'T have 2 hard drives in your PC you're missing out.

Corrupt OS? No problem. Data is stored on a second hard drive...

[Comage]

I don't want to touch on any good/bad issues with running 3 hard drives at one, but I got a suggestion for you if you really want to head that way:

Make sure you get extra cooling for the drives. Either a HDD mobile rack (try to avoid those "Made In Taiwan") with a fan, or just extra casing fans.

1 drive nowadays runs pretty warm without fans. 2's a source of heat that requires cooling. 3, well, you could use that as a heater if it gets cold in your room. :)

[ukulele]

Originally posted by Comage
I don't want to touch on any good/bad issues with running 3 hard drives at one, but I got a suggestion for you if you really want to head that way:

Make sure you get extra cooling for the drives. Either a HDD mobile rack (try to avoid those "Made In Taiwan") with a fan, or just extra casing fans.

1 drive nowadays runs pretty warm without fans. 2's a source of heat that requires cooling. 3, well, you could use that as a heater if it gets cold in your room. :)

Yes, you do need to consider heat factors, in a crowded case. I mount the C drive on the lowest rack where it is the coolest, then alternate the other drives between the floppy and optical drives. No two harddrives are right next each other and mounting harddrives in the 5 1/4" bays let's the air circulate around them better. Really though the only drives that even get warm are the ones in constant use. The boot drive and program drives are the only ones that really matter. Backup drives and image drives are rarely used and not a problem as far as heat goes.