PC hardware: How many drives can the motherboard support?
Drive Hoarding
by Impreza WRX - 4/1/05 7:23 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerSure, you can add those 2 without removing anything, but you will have to buy an additional IDE Controller card. You will also have to buy a bigger power supply. Get at least a 500w ATX power supply, since those are quite inexpensive if you play your cards right. Do note that OEM cases (for example SONY, COMPAQ, etc.) may have specially designed power supplies that will not fit elsewhere. It is possible to have up to 24 disk and disc drives, plus two floppies, when using DOS and Windows 9X/ME. With Windows 2000 and XP, you can support more than that by mounting the drives in "NTFS Folers" which would be like C:\My other hard drive\ instead of Q:\ etc. The logistics of doing something like that would mean either one reallly powerful power supply (we're talking in the kilowatts) or a multitude of power supplies, maybe even external USB2 or FireWire drives, and a HUGE case or a lot of shelf space for your external drives. Why anyone would want terabytes of hard drive space is beyond me, unless you are too cheap to buy a Beowulf cluster server!
Ya gotta be kiddin'...
by Wolfie2k5 - 4/1/05 9:11 PM In reply to: Drive Hoarding by Impreza WRXWhy anyone would want terabytes of hard drive space is beyond me,...
Hard drive space in a computer is like chocolate to most women -
TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH!
Sheesh. I remember the first box I got that came with a hard drive. I had gone from an ancient Osborne I with 92 KB floppy disks to an IBM clone with a 40 MB hard drive. When I started out, I thought I'd NEVER fill the drive. That 40 MB seemed like an endless ocean of disk space.
Less than 6 months later, I was getting frustrated trying to figure out what to delete to make room.
These days, many typical files won't even fit on a 40 MB drive. You can't even install the latest Windows in less than 2.5 GIG of space. (Need room for temp files)
Tho, I will admit that these days, drives are dirt cheap. There's no real logical reason to have more than 4 drives (hard and CD/DVD) installed on a computer unless you're building one with a RAID setup for backing up sensetive work.
How many drives can a motherboard support?
by grandpajim - 4/1/05 7:37 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerI had the same problem & solved it by getting an external HD. The external is USB (1.1 or 2.0) or FIREWIRE. It is NOT slow - as a matter of fact, it is as fast if not faster than one of the internal drives. I have had no experience with external burners, but people who have external DVD players say that the speed is fine. I vote for the external drive. It may be slightly slower than an internal burner, but usually you don't burn a copy of a file but once, so the additional time shouldn't matter (if there IS any time difference).
How many drives answer
by larrystell - 4/1/05 7:53 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerCurrently most IDE Controllers will only support 4 devices. However, adding a 2nd PCI IDE Controller will allow 4 more devices. Make sure that each IDE Controller has a hard drive or it will not work. You are only limited by what will fit in the case and how much your Power Supply can handle.
You can add drives, but...
by kal9000 - 4/1/05 8:15 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerFirst, If you're talking about a dvd burner, ask yourself why add it instead of just replacing your old cdrom drive (if you have one), that way you'll have a CDrw and a DVDrw.
As for the hard drive, the post "Drive Hoarding" by "Impreza WRX" is the best: You can always buy a PCI IDE controller card which will enable you to add IDE controllers (some of which have RAID capabilities but will have problems controlling CDs, in which case you can leave you CD Drives on the Motherboard controllers).
Be aware, however, that at least a 350W power Supply is required depending on how many power-hungry pieces of hardware you're using.
Note that today's average 80GB IDE hard drive uses a maximum of 17.0 W (for spinup) and average 8 to 14 w (for read/write/idle and seek)
re: How many drives can the motherboard support?
by seaside - 4/1/05 8:34 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerWell Yes and No.
Normally there is only connectors for 4 (ide) drivers on a motherboard. So your friend is correct. But there is a workaround.
You can add a "promis" controll card (pci) to your computer.
It will make it possible to connect 4 more drives units to it.
My experience with promis connected drives is that the computer only sees them when the operating system is loaded, so it isn't a good idea to put windows on any of these drives.
Some computers have this controller built into the motherboard and then of course you can connect 8 drives to the motherboard.
Seaside
Harddrives
by doclnemo - 4/1/05 9:48 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerI am currently running 3 harddrives a dvd rom, cd rom, dvd burner, a cd burner, an old 120 tape drive, 5 1/4 floppy, and my 3 1/2 floppy off my compaq amd 2600+ using win2000
I had to make an extention for the ide ribbons to allow for the additional drives and add a new power supply. The supplys are two 450 watters and yes my computer is the fuglist thing you'll ever see but I did it to prove a piont that even a mini tower can play the big tower games
Lee Miller, doclnemo@yahoo.com
While you did prove a point
by chuckieu - 4/2/05 10:11 AM In reply to: Harddrives by doclnemoI wonder if you know that a DVDrom drive also plays CDs and a DVD burner also burns CDS? But you said you were only proving a point of some kind. chuck
Get a rack mount and new motherboard. . .
by techtype - 4/1/05 12:14 PM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerHi
If you get a rack mount and a server type motherboard, you can have as many as you want. This is because in the rack mount we have all of this fantastic space and air flow, why one could even heat their home with the heat given off. Like the others do not use a CD burner and a DVD burner separate. All DVD's since the beginning were/are planned to play and record both CD's and DVD's, but unlike most here I prefer to use a CD/DVD ROM to play CD's/DVD's and save the burner for recording. This is because the burner needs to have tighter tolerances, so the more it used for non-recording purposes, the more it wears out. To be non-glib about the number drives, how many open PCI slots do you have open/not filled? IDE controller cards can be bought to fill up those empty slots, each controller usually controls four IDE/ATAPI devices. That is how servers are made and using motherboards that are specific to being servers. To answer your question, number slots, number of IDE controller boards.
Hope this helps.
Rick
http://www.rickswebfactory.com/
Re: How many drive can a motherboard support???
by joannejohn - 4/1/05 12:56 PM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerHi,
I can't say for ALL motherboards, but I have a Compaq Pentium 3 running Win 98 SE, and I have 4 hard drives, 2 CD burners, and an old Zip 100 drive, all running at the same time.
I installed a pci card for 2 additional ide channels, and have no conflicts or problems. I also occasionally use a USB drive when I want to move things between the desktop and my laptop.
Hope this helps!
John
How many hard drives and CD's -IDE slots
by ViCtAAh - 4/1/05 9:51 PM In reply to: Re: How many drive can a motherboard support??? by joannejohnI have an Asus A7V133 mobo with raid. I dont run raid but have utilised the extra IDE's to run DVD rom,CDRW,1x80G HD and 2x 40G HD's. All work fine no need for exst.cards etc but I dont think I can fit anymore in?
this question is sort of off topic but...
by zimz2689 - 4/2/05 7:19 AM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerare all cd drives (ie cdrw, dvd burner etc...) compatible? I have a DVD burner that i want to put in my sony vaio. (PCV-RX552, Windows XP HOME, 384 MB RAM, 80 gig drive) I plan to replace my cdrw drive with it. My other cd drive is a dvd-rom drive. Thanks.
Simply put... yes... but be sure to check the drive jumper
by khongphutu - 4/2/05 6:35 PM In reply to: this question is sort of off topic but... by zimz2689Technically, the issue of compatibility is a function of several major compatibility factors:
1. Communication Interface
2. Driver (OS-dependant)
3. Software (OS-dependant)
Common communication interfaces, which can be one of the following:
1. IDE/EIDE interface
2. SCSI Interfaces (50/68/80 pins; internal/external)
3. USB/Firewire (typically used for external devices)
4. SATA
Most home users' PCs uses IDE/EIDE interface and newer motherboards also support SATA onboard. Unless you specifically buy SCSI-supported MB or add-on SCSI card/RAID card, this is most likely not applicable to your case. Therefore, based on the intent of your question, the answer is yes from the interface connectivity perspective. That's, you can take any IDE/EIDE device and plug it in another host which also support the IDE/EIDE interface. Just make sure that you check the Master/Slave jumper and jump the drive accordingly.
Beyond the physical interface, you must consider driver and software compatibilities.
Basically, you must have the driver for each hardware device so that it can communicate with the OS. Unless your DVD Burner is rather old, which does not seem to be the case here, Win XP will likely have the driver for it. You could also check with Sony to see if your DVD Burner is supported in Win XP. Your DVD Burner software should works if the hardware is supported by Win XP.
Caution:
You may need to remove the driver and software installed to support the old hardware/CDRW drive before installing the DVD Burner. In some cases, you may have driver conflict which may prevent loading the driver for the newly installed hardware (DVD burner in your case). Also, in rare instances, the old software can also cause conflict. Just be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action.
It is true
by itek4u - 4/2/05 6:25 PM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerFour drives are the max. To add additional drives, install a second IDE controller adapter (PCI card) to gain four additional IDE drives. The card will have it's own on-board BIOS, all you need to do is load the driver. The motherboard will assign it an IRQ.
Check out the link below to see some of the cards available and the prices:
http://www.newegg.com/app/searchProductResult.asp?Submit=Go&Range=1&DEPA=0&bop=and&description=ide+controller&Order=price
Anyway, if you do end up with a conflict,just move the card to a different PCI slot so it will get a different IRQ. You can also disable your com ports and parallel port in the bios if they are not used. This will free up a couple of IRQ's.
Also, make sure your power supply has enough juice to handle the additional drives.
Hope this helps,
How many drives can the motherboard support?
by bdbirr - 4/3/05 7:24 PM In reply to: How many drives can the motherboard support? by tyrantigerMost motherboards come with 2 connectors for hard drives, CD-ROMs and DVDs which are referred to as devices. Each connector will support 2 devices. There is a Primary and a Secondary connector on the motherboard. The ribbon that connects to the motherboard has 2 connectors on it for devices. One is called the “Master” and the 2nd is called the “Slave”. The jumper settings on the devices determines which device is the “Master” and which one in the “Slave” With this setup the motherboard can handle 4 devices. It is possible to add a controller card that will have 2 connectors on it, to your motherboard that will give you the ability to add another 4 devices. That is if you have an open slot. Which will give you a total of 8 devices. It is possible to do what you want to do, but there is the issues of will your power supply be able to handle the other devices?
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