How many cables do I need?

If you set each of the HDDs up as master, you will need two ATA-100 cables. If they're set-up as master/slave on the same channel, you can use I ATA-100 cable.

<b><font color=blue>~scribble~</font color=blue></b> :wink:

<font color=blue>You will need two cables for the IBM 60GXP's. If your going to be setting them up on a RAID 0 you need them on separate cables. As for the DVD and the CDR you will want to put those on the standard mobo controllers(not the RAID), separated would be better. So total you will need four Ultra Cables. Or you can get standard IDE cables for the CDR and DVD and two Ultra cables for the Hard Drives.</font color=blue>

<font color=red><b>"Can you deal with that!"</b></font color=red>

it doesn't HAVE to be. that's what most raid controller/mobo manufacture's suggest. at least for 2 drives, you're going to get the best performance that way. if you couldn't run master/slave configures on a raid then there would be no way to have more than 2 drives on a two-channel raid controller.

CPUs are like testicles, every computer should have 2!

In other words;

You could do it with two.

Three would be better.

Four would be best. Then the optical drives would also be on a separate channel, apart from each other, which would minimize buffer underrun errors.

Whether the DVD or CD-RW should be on regular ATA-33 IDE cables depends on the device. Some newer optical drives are ATA-66, and should be on a faster cable for best performance.

Me ... I'd buy four pre-rounded ATA-100 cables, to maximize the airflow. They are backwards-compatible with the older standards, and when the time came to upgrade my optical drives, I would haven't have to buy new cables ... they'd already be in the can.

Note: Don't round ATA-100 cables yourself ... it's hard to do it correctly, and avoid crosstalk. Atapi errors are kinda irritating.

Toejam31

<font color=purple>My Rig:</font color=purple> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847&lt;/A>

their not that hard to do though. i admit i butchered the first ata100 i tried, cause i was in a hurry and just wanted to see what it was going to be like. but if you take a lil extra time it's no prob.

CPUs are like testicles, every computer should have 2!

I have the following configuration :

1.7Ghz pentIV
Abit TH7-RAID mother board
512mb RDRAM SamSung PC800
3 Quantum fireball Plus AS 60Gig drives
Asus GeForce3 64Mb video card
Creative Encore DVD/CD rom drive with DVD hardware card
Sound from built-in AC'97 audio chip

I have one 60gig drive running on IDE1 (win98 drive) on an ATA100 cable.
I have two 60gig drives IDE3 running in RAID0 configuration off of one ATA100 cable (one set as master and the other as slave).
The DVD/cd rom drive IDE2 is running on its own cable ATA33/66

I do hardcore gaming and Digital video editing (via my firewire card) this RAID0 configuration is fast and gives me a bit under 120gigs of HD space for raw and edited video.

I hope this helps!
MacGman