PCI-based IDE/ATA Add-In Controller Card........WHAT..??? HOW...????

[TroKnight]

Hi, My IDE/ATA channel was fully occupied with 2 hard disks, CD-RW and DVD-ROM. Because I'm doing a lot of video editing works, now I'm running out of disk space.

I plan to buy an additional new hard disk for storage, but now no more channel left. I don't want to get rid one of my available devices. I heard somebody talking about a IDE/ATA add-in Controller Card, I never heard it and have no experience on using it.

Anybody can help me....?? Which one is good....?? Will my motherboard support that card....?? And what is RAID controller card...???? Is it the same......????

HELP...HELP......I'm running out space.

 

[Marcs41]

An additional IDE card is just what it says, a diskcontroller, it fits in a standard PCI slot.
A RAID controller is similar, but, in short, it gives for instance an option to mirror disks for redundancy purposes. If the solution is out there, let us know it was helpful, so others can benefit from it as well..

 

[cyrunner]

promise makes a good one I got mine for 60 bucks then you can ad 4 more drives they fit in an open pci slot or if you want you can get a gigabyte MB model GA-7vax/7vaxp it has the raid built on board mine cost 150.00 I do belive you can use it as an extra ide slot or a raid also or if you just need the extra storage and you dont have to have every thing right there try, and you have a free 5 1/4 bay try moble racks they cost between 20 and 25 bucks and you then just have to put in your hd and swap them I have a lot of data and i use all three hope this helps

 

[aldog]

Hello, I have a Siig Ultra DMA Pci controller, for about $50.

It is simple, it acts like another IDE controller. It has two channels, just like your motherbard does, only it fits inside any of your available PCI slots (the long gray slots) usually four of them available.


To make things quicker, it is called an IDE/ATA controller.
IDE typically reffers to hard disk drives, ATA refers to zip disks, cd-roms...ect. Simple.

But what you need to know is the speed of your system bus. Older systems run at IDE/ATA 66, some run faster at IDE/ATA 100, and newer high-end systems run at IDE/ATA 133. The speed of your system determines the type of card you may need. Don't buy an IDE/ATA 133 controller card if your system supports IDE/ATA 100. It is unessesary, and I don't think you will gain any improvement in speed, you will only pay too much. On the other hand, if you have a IDE/ATA 133 system bus, don't cheap put and buy IDE/ATA 100 card which is about $10-20 less because you WILL sacrifice performance.

Just a side note, system speed is different than proccessor speed. System speed is the speed at which the device communicate with the motherboard? Don't forget to adjust the jumpers. Sole devices should be MASTER jumper.

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks....now, I'm more confident and will looking for one. Buy adding the card, is it possible let say to use up to 8 devices (4 via motherboard & 4 via add-in card)...since there are 8 channel now ??

I don't quite understand about jumper setting. Like mine, the system will not boot up if I set my primary HD to master, so I set it to CS and it works.....

 

[aldog]

Ok, Yes with an IDE/ATA add-in card you can have up to four devices on the card! Just like the motherboard. So you will be able to have a total of eight devices. The problem with your computer not starting when you have the master jumper set is that you must use the VERY END of the cable for a master jumper setting. The middle of the cable is ONLY for a slave device. So in order for a cd-rom or hard drive to use the master setting, it MUST be installed at the very end of the cable.

I think the only thing you might have to be careful of is if you have enough power? These devices will use the power supply, and you have to make sure you have a high enough wattage, or else you may damage your hardware.

Thats about all there is to it, and I hope you have good luck. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

 

[mksa]

TroKnight,
You don't mention what OS you have loaded. I'd do some checking around before you try to use it with XP Pro or 2000. I've tried installing Maxtor Ultra ATA/UDMA/133/100/66/33 PCI adapter cards on two different MOBOs both running XP PRO, so far I haven't gotten either to work. Maxtor says it will run with XP, and it's probably something I'm mucking up, but still I'd check first, and thoroughly understand the installation procedure. It's also possible you'll have to change your bios to support SCSI or IDE add-on cards.

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks, but how to exactly know my system got sufficient power to run more than 4 devices....??? I'm running machine with XP pro...and also how can I change the BIOS setting to support the add-in card...?? isn't it a plug-n-play device...???

These are something about my system that give you a picture on what I wanna do:

Intel MoBo
P4 1.5GHz
384 RDRAM
2 HDD(7200rpm) with different OS respectively[XP-Pro(video editing)-120GB] & [ME(Games & etc)-40GB]
2 ATA devices(DVD-ROM & CR-RW)
Scanner
Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker
Laser Printer
***This PC mainly used for VIDEO CAPTURE & VIDEO EDITING***

For the time being, I need to install another one HDD 7200rpm with 80GB capacity for storage.

Please advice...

Thanks

 

[joejava]

Think outside the box

what about a USB 2.0 card and then hook up external USB Hard Drives. I do not know how many you can put on USB at once but you can get external powered ones, can swap out hard drives so could catagorize them by projects, file type or whatever. This way you have unlimited expansion and can upgrade the Computer outright without having to worry about the data on these hard drives.

 

[joejava]

PS you could get a combo DVD/CD-RW drive and pull out out either the DVD or CD-RW drive, unless of course you use both drives together in the video editing process.

 

[TroKnight]

Yes, I'm thinking of using external HDD too but it's still kinda expensive stuff here. If I use it, nothing to worry about power supply anymore since it uses an ac adaptor itself..??? Any difference performance between external 7200rpm(2 MB buffer) USB 2.0 and 7200rpm(8 MB buffer) internal ones....???

Combo DVD/CD-RW is also quite expensive here.....still have to wait.

 

[joejava]

here is a URL on article about external USB HD
you need to use USB 2.0 or FireWire. no problem under XP - maybe problem under ME(not sure here)

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/personal_technology/5009476.htm

300$ for a 120 GIG maxtor rig. he mentions video editing specifically in the article.