Just a simple hardware question...
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Okay, so to be able to use 4 hdds, a cdrw drive and a dvd drive, I'll need to buy a mobo with 4 ide ports? And then set it up with the hdds sharing two ports (they are all the same speed), and the cdrw and dvd drives with thier own ports? Can anyone recommend a good mobo with 4 ide ports that allows three 512MB PC2100 ddr ram modules and a s478 p4a/2000? I'd hate to drop two of the drives unless absolutely necessary.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
I'd stick with a standard two-port system if this is all you want to do. Stick the two HDDs on the first port, and on the second port set the DVD as Master, the CD-RW as slave. If you ever need more you can buy a PCI controller with two additonal ports very cheaply. "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Recursion." "Recursion who?" "Knock, knock..."
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Okay, so to be able to use 4 hdds, a cdrw drive and a dvd drive, I'll need to buy a mobo with 4 ide ports? And then set it up with the hdds sharing two ports (they are all the same speed), and the cdrw and dvd drives with thier own ports? Can anyone recommend a good mobo with 4 ide ports that allows three 512MB PC2100 ddr ram modules and a s478 p4a/2000? I'd hate to drop two of the drives unless absolutely necessary.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
I have a motherboard with just two ports on it, but I've added an IDE card (goes in a PCI slot) that's a kind of mini-RAID type thing giving me an extra four devices. I have a hard disk, dvd-rom, cd-rewriter, zip drive, and caddy connected at the moment and it's working fine. -- Andrew.
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Two devices (master/slave) can be connected to each port. Normally, there are two ports on a motherboard, limiting the # of devices to 4 total (and depending on the devices, you may not want to use that many - a slow device sharing a port with a fast device can slow down access to the fast device). There are some motherboards out now with 4 ports however, so if you think you'll be wanting more than two or three devices, i'd suggest investing in one of these.
Shog9 --
Maybe Java is kind of like God, it "works in mysterious ways". It seems like your apps are running slowly, because in the backgroud Java is solving world hunger, or finding the cure to cancer. - Ryan Johnston, Don't die java!
The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
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The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
David Wulff wrote: Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with. Tell me about it. I've honestly told you all i know already - for the past two years i've been immersed in programming, and haven't been keeping up at all. A couple of friends just bought MBs with 4 IDE ports though, so i know they're sold. Did you try http://www.pricewatch.com? I really must remember to see if there's an updated release of "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" available; it was a lifesaver a few years back at any rate. Who really has the time to read all those review sites each day?
Shog9 --
Maybe Java is kind of like God, it "works in mysterious ways". It seems like your apps are running slowly, because in the backgroud Java is solving world hunger, or finding the cure to cancer. - Ryan Johnston, Don't die java!
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I have a motherboard with just two ports on it, but I've added an IDE card (goes in a PCI slot) that's a kind of mini-RAID type thing giving me an extra four devices. I have a hard disk, dvd-rom, cd-rewriter, zip drive, and caddy connected at the moment and it's working fine. -- Andrew.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
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David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
In fact, almost exactly like that :). -- Andrew.
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In fact, almost exactly like that :). -- Andrew.
Okay, cheers! I'll have to go to bed early now, as I am only supposed to learn one new thing each day and that's two gone already... :)
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
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The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
David Wulff wrote: (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Yes, I've never used the built-on RAID on any motherboard I've had. I think that is three boards now. Usually you have to go through extra work to set up the RAID anyway; so those extra two connectors should be treated as regular IDE ports by default. James "Java is free - and worth every penny." - Christian Graus
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David Wulff wrote: (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Yes, I've never used the built-on RAID on any motherboard I've had. I think that is three boards now. Usually you have to go through extra work to set up the RAID anyway; so those extra two connectors should be treated as regular IDE ports by default. James "Java is free - and worth every penny." - Christian Graus
Not to forget each port added uses another Irq which limits how much more cool stuff you can add on. I'm using every Irq now. Then again USB takes care of that.:~
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The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
RAID on an IDE controller basically means the controller can do RAID 0 (two drives appear to be one big one, no data redundancy) or RAID 1 (mirroring data on two drives so there's no data loss if one drive dies). Those two RAID levels are the ones I see most commonly. NT can do all this and more in software, but doing it in the controller is faster, naturally. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
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David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
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Okay, cheers! I'll have to go to bed early now, as I am only supposed to learn one new thing each day and that's two gone already... :)
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
David Wulff wrote: I am only supposed to learn one new thing each day and that's two gone already... Does that mean you'll be sleeping in tomorrow? "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Recursion." "Recursion who?" "Knock, knock..."
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The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
Those motherboards have an integrated RAID controller - usually RAID5 - on the board. I'd avoid that - the boards with everything integrated are cheaper up front, but having to replace the MB every time one feature fails gets costly. I prefer to get the best basic MB I can find and populate it with the other functions as separate replaceable units. PCI 2 does a nice job of sharing IRQs, and the new BIOSs are good at allocating resources, so the traditional problems of having many peripheral cards have all but gone away. That's one trend I really like! Win2K and NT servers can do RAID in software, btw, but that seems like a huge waste of CPU cycles compared to the cost of a hardware solution. I've never tried it, but I'll bet it makes an otherwise decent PC run like a wounded beaver. "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Recursion." "Recursion who?" "Knock, knock..."
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Okay, so to be able to use 4 hdds, a cdrw drive and a dvd drive, I'll need to buy a mobo with 4 ide ports? And then set it up with the hdds sharing two ports (they are all the same speed), and the cdrw and dvd drives with thier own ports? Can anyone recommend a good mobo with 4 ide ports that allows three 512MB PC2100 ddr ram modules and a s478 p4a/2000? I'd hate to drop two of the drives unless absolutely necessary.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
David, go for an Athlon XP ! More power for the same money, or less money for the same power ! Asus A7V333 RAID has 4 IDE ports (2 on the RAID controller) which lets you have 8 IDE devices. I am collecting my Abit AT7-MAX RAID which has 6 ports (higher speed RAID but no legacy ports sso k/b and mouse are USB) today. Elaine :rose: Would you like to meet my teddy bear ?
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The only mobos I can find with 4 IDE ports are for RAID configurations - what does that mean? I understand basically what this means, I think, but any information I find on the topic confuses me even more. :(( Would I be able to be able to use such a board given the info in my other reply (i.e. is there a way to just ignore all this RAID stuff?) Uck, I am really starting to feel the gap in my knowledge that learning from home doesn't help with.
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.
David, RAID is for high performance or high reliability systems but it can also be used just to have extra drives attached. Basically, RAID0 parallels pairs of drives to double access speed and RAID1 automatically mirrors one drive on a second so if the first drive fails you don't lose data. Try downloading the manual some something like the Abit AT7 because it has a good description of the RAID configuration software. One other thing, if speed is important put the HDDs on seperate ports so the aren't sharing bandwidth on each port. Elaine :rose: PS My tutorial on PC/RAID configuration is available for only 20kg of Galaxy fruit & nut :cool: Would you like to meet my teddy bear ?
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David, go for an Athlon XP ! More power for the same money, or less money for the same power ! Asus A7V333 RAID has 4 IDE ports (2 on the RAID controller) which lets you have 8 IDE devices. I am collecting my Abit AT7-MAX RAID which has 6 ports (higher speed RAID but no legacy ports sso k/b and mouse are USB) today. Elaine :rose: Would you like to meet my teddy bear ?
Trollslayer wrote: go for an Athlon XP No no no no NO! ;P Athlon's get way too hot for my little bedroom, with zero ventilation, and I would be using an app that is optimised for the p4. Finally as I have said before... I like being able to say "my computer is a Pentium 4 - do dum dee doo doo". ;P
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Listening to quiet music can seriously damage your credability.