Ataching more than 4 IDE Devices...

[Anon]

Hi there,

I am sure this can be done, but Im not sure how...
I would like to attach a DVD, CDRW, CDROM and two hard drives to my system. I have an older IDE card available, but im not too sure if it will do the trick...

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Why would You Install a Separate CD-Rom Drive if you have a DVD Rom Drive... You may try using a I/O Card?

[Big_Z]

You can get a Promise or a Highpoint IDE controller card that plugs into the PCI slot. It may make sense to go with a RAID card and improve the performance with two hard drives. It will just be a bit more stress when installing your OS or troubleshooting.

[Anonymous]

Thanks... I will try that...
The controller cards I have are ISA... would that be why I cant do it?

[Twinkie]

Assuming you are using newer hard drives, old ISA controller cards don\'t support the speed of many newer hard drives.  Often they have a hard time seeing large (8+Gig roughly) drives as well.  If you use the old ISA card plug the CDROM into it.  Most never go as fast as your hard drive anyway.  If money is an issue stick to controller cards (most are PCI now) but getting a RAID card is a much better option if you can afford it.  Hey Z, I assumed we were talking IDE here.  Isn\'t RAID SCSI only?

[Josetann]

Nope, IDE raid has been out for a bit.  But, most of the ide raid cards are just regular ide cards (such as the promise ultra66 vs the promise fastrack 66), the raid part is done in software via drivers and not via hardware as many think.  When using with linux, most experts on the subject think that linux\'s built-in raid ability is better performing than using a cheap ide raid card.  Then again there aren\'t mature drivers (if you can even find any) for the software-based raid cards.  As far as performance under windows...I dunno.  Be interesting to see.