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Extra IDE Channels Needed

Forum Motherboards & Memory : General Motherboard - Extra IDE Channels Needed

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Anonymous   08-01-2001 at 08:13:35 AM

I have a system with 2 IDE channels (2 devices per channel). I need to add another device, can anyone recommend an additional controller card that should work with an on-board IDE controller and not get upset.

TIA

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Crashman   08-01-2001 at 08:31:12 AM
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Most of the add on cards will work fine. But I said forget all that a long time ago and went SCSI. A decent 50-pin SCSI card can be had for less than $30, supports up to 7 devices, and is fast enough for all CD devices, freeing up the IDE channels for your main hard drives. I recommend the old Adaptec 2940, pleanty fast for a SCSI CDRW, CD, DVD, etc. Plus it gives you the ability to operate a SCSI scanner, which is far faster than a USB scanner and far cheaper than a FireWire scanner.

Video killed my Radio Card!

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khha4113   08-01-2001 at 10:00:07 AM
- 0 +

<b><A HREF="http://www.promise.com/Products/Default.htm" target="_new">Promise IDE Controllers</A></b>

:smile: Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

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Anonymous   08-02-2001 at 06:33:11 PM
- 0 +

I went Crashman's route and went SCSI for my DVD/CD/Zip/Scanner needs, though I only have the Adaptec 2930CU card (still quite good for those types of devices but you wouldn't want to try to run a SCSI hard drive off of it).

One nice thing I ran into with a SCSI DVD was that it got rid of some annoying errors I received with an IDE DVD drive under WinME. With the IDE burner I would get an error (blue screen) during some game installations if I kicked out the CD before the drive span down (even though it was done reading it). That would screw up the install and I would have to start over. With SCSI that never occurs. I also don't run into any issues with DMA affecting game installs (the original Baldurs Gate 2 install had issues here with my Toshiba IDE DVD). Anyway, food for thought.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

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girish   08-02-2001 at 07:04:58 PM
- 0 +

i agree, but if you are on a budget, get a Promise or Asus PCI IDE ATA/100 card, it will again have two more channels.
getting a SCSI card will get you more channels, even a single channel card will allow 7 devices.

Its hard to beat SCSI access times, but its hard to beat cost-effective 100 MB/s transfer rated of IDE, faster SCSI costs much more, at the most you could have 80 MB/s drives but that would be too costly. And all SCSI devices are a lot costlier than their IDE counterparts.

On a budget? get a PCI IDE controller card.

girish

<font color=blue>die-hard fans don't have heat-sinks!</font color=blue>

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Crashman   08-03-2001 at 01:21:37 AM
- 0 +

You don't seem to take into account that with a single channel SCSI card you still have two IDE channels supporting up to 4 drives. If you go the cheap SCSI 1 rout, you can put all your fast transfer dirves on IDE and your slower drives, such a CD devices and Zip dirves, on the SCSI controller. Total cost is about the same.

Video killed my Radio Card!

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