How many IDE drives can I use?
 

I have a Gateway Performance 450 PIII 450mHz, running win 98.
I currently have a 13gb hd, a dvd-rom, and a cd-rw. I want to add another hd so I can install linux and do a dual boot config. How can I verify my system will be able to handle a 4th IDE device?

Thanks.

most pc's can handle up to 4 ide as standard, if you were wanting anymore than that it would be probably unlikely in some cases.

You can always add a PCI IDE card that will give you another 4 IDE devices. I've got the two IDE channels on the MB and two on the PCI ATA100 card, giving me a total of 8 ide devices. I have 4 hard drives total, one on each IDE bus, and one is shared with the CD drive. Linux has no problem detecting any of the devices.

I've got two hard drives (hda - hdb) a DVD-ROM (hdc) and a CD-RW (hdd), for the cd-rw you'll want to use ide-scsi emulation in linux.

On my board, which is a ASUS A7V, it has 2 IDE channels. With the CD / DVD and writer on one channel, and a 60 and 100GB drive on the other, I had to put in a Promise 66 controller PCI card for the other two.

so with all these ide devices lurking in your casing... do you need an extra power supply?

No, just a bigger one. Mine is 300w.

was just wondering the other day...

is it possible to have 2 power supplies in connected to the different devices... and would it make any differences... eg.
1 floppy, 2hdd, 1 cd-rom, 1 cd-rw but connected to 2 power supplies... (be they 250 or 300W)... eg. the hard drives and floppy to one and the 2 cd-rom drives to the other... and most importantly, any difference compared to just having one power supply?

will it also cause anything to fuse? :p

Probably, but it would be better to get one high quality power supply than two low quality ones. I have seen water cooled boxes with seperate power supplies for the cooling system and even one with a seperate box for it.

I Same Here
 

See i was thinking of making a wooden box and use it instead of a case it would allow me to though aas many ide scsi devices and power suppyies that i would want. And yes it is possible to use two power suppies.and no it will not lower performace, just make sure u dont pull too much or you'll blow a fuse or a socket.

See i would buy a huge power suppy but jobless and even worse 15 years old so finding work is virtually impossible.

So the best thing to do is goto thrift shop find some 10 dollar computer check the power suppy by it their u go cheap deal.

Gui10,

I am not sure if you power supply question was directed at me or not, but I will give you an answer anyway.

I have a total of 4 drives, and 2 ATAPI CD drives. I have a single 400 watt power supply powering off a UPS battery which is recharged by the wall socket. I have not seen any performance drops of any kind, and it seems to work reliably.

shadowhacker,
my questions are usually fair game for anyone to answer... :) and u sound like u got the moolah to buy the mahini stuff! not many home users around me have a UPS or a 400 watt power supply... u've got some hot stuff there... whoo hoo!

everyone (including shadow):
thank you all for answering me... at present i can ill afford to try some of the things i ask (lack of funds mainly) and u're all very helpful. very much appreciated...

I've had six primary (IDE0-3) controllers running six HDDs. It kinda chews through the interrupts tho.

thanks to all who replied
 

Well it sounds like i'm ready to add the hd (oh yeah I need to buy it still) I have two power supply connections still available inside so I'm going to hope the ps will handle it.

There are some nice multifan hd coolers available that require a 5.25 bay, just fyi.


Thanks again

before I discovered I could pirate partition magic 7 I tried to use two hard drives for linux and windows. I had could never get a boot manager to switch between the two hard drives but I'm sure someone here can help you.