Looking for a decent IDE controller

[drfsupercenter]

I have that 60GB drive that I can't use because my motherboard only supports 2 sets of 2 drives.

Well, my hard drives are filling up, FAST. How do I make DVDISOs if I have less than 4GB left?

Anyway, I still have that drive. I heard that you can buy a PCI card that allows you to plug anywhere from 4 - 8 more drives in.

So I thought, hey, maybe I should get one!

But, I don't have much money, so I want the cheapest one that works. I could just buy one for $20 but it would probably not work well, so I leave it to you experts to tell me which one to get.

And you all know I prefer if they are from Micro Center

And just as a side note, with the video card and TV tuner, as well as the ethernet that came with the PC, my PCI slots are all taken. However, I use wireless USB, so I'm not even using the ethernet. Can I safely pull that out or will that screw something up?

[Chewy]

http://www.microcenter.com/byos/byos_single_product_results.phtml?product_id=219589

you could pull the ethernet card,

but why not just pull the cable from your optical drive and offload a bunch of stuff to the spare hard drive, things you don't use often


or stick it into one of these

http://www.microcenter.com/byos/byos_single_product_results.phtml?product_id=224062

[drfsupercenter]

Chewy, I have a spare metal enclosure.

When I called Dell to get one for my extra drive, they "accidentaly" sent me two, but no screws. But I have spare screws

And I saw that $30 one before, it's the cheapest they have I think, but does it work well, do you know? I noticed it's a little bit slower than the others, or something?

[Chewy]

you might blow your power supply by adding more drives, don't worry about
ata 100 controllers(100MB/s), they are not slow.

[drfsupercenter]

I still have a couple more power slots on my power supply.

Originally it didn't have that many but I fried mine (don't ask how) and bought a generic one from Dell, that had more outputs.

And that's not a bad price for that enclosure, I should buy one just to have it. But I would rather put the drive inside the PC.

[Chewy]

go for it

[drfsupercenter]

Will Windows complain if I take the Ethernet card out?

[Chewy]

take it out and boot up and test

[vw56german]

This is the card I use DRF. http://sonnettech.com/product/tempo_trio.html

I got it when I upgraded my PC and did not want to part with my 120Gb drive. The new PC had SATA.

Even on clearance at MicroCenter it was still a bit more that you have to spend, but I think the card is great.

[drfsupercenter]

Woah it's 180 bucks at micro center.

The other is fine for me LOL.

Although the firewire is nice, I can't afford it

[katzdvd]

Hi drf,

I recently purchased this one, chew recommended it to me in an earlier thread;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132004

I have been using it for a couple of weeks, & it is working great for me.
$11.99 + ship! can't beat the price!

regards, katz

[drfsupercenter]

Hmm, looks cool. I will have to ask my parents if they can order it with one of their credit cards.

Also, right now the drive is set to slave because it was so on the old setup. Obviously I would want it on Master, but the drive came with no instruction manual as it was OEM with the computer.

It's a Seagate and it has 8 pins (2 rows of 4). Anyone know the master setting on one of those?

[drfsupercenter]

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/J/JBOD.html

Apparently it doesn't do that? So the drive has to be RAID compatible?


From a NewEgg review:

Cons: the installation is a little strange but no big deal. I can’t believe somebody will establish a raid with a data-full HD. Don’t their friends tell them you need to copy the data before you build a raid. Once you setup a raid you will lose the data on your original HD because com will recognize HDs as fresh ones for raid building. That’s why nobody should use an old HD to do this. ONLY USE FRESH OR USELESS-DATA HD TO ESTABLISH THE RAID!! I think maybe someday and somebody will complain that his data loses when he take one HD from the raid system. The same reason, you can’t take any HD out of the raid system after it is established and the taken off one will has no data recognized in any com. This is the common sense for Raid establishment and I will never try the red line about it.

OK, now I'm having second thoughts. What is this RAID thing?

[Chewy]

not to worry, the raid is only for matched hard drives(a pair), just jumper master and load drivers for card and go.

[drfsupercenter]

Oh.

So I can add another as slave and it won't care?

Btw, do you know the jumper setting for master?