what would be the best way to add and extra hardrive im a little confused ive currently got only two ide port on motherboard ive got a hardrive and a dvd drive on one and a floppy and memory card reader on another would it be simpler to get an adapter so i can use my ide hardrive on a sataport and get a 1tb hardrive and plug it in as a slave on the ide port or what should i do im confused or buy another dvd drive (sata) and have both hardrives conected (i dont wont to reinstall windows and my 160gb hardrive is nearly full) thanks in advance
What motherboard do you have? Without getting really complex I think any of the following would work; 1. Buy another IDE HDD, junk your current DVD drive for a SATA one, and plug them up. 2. Buy another IDE HDD, junk your floppy drive and card reader for an integrated combination of both (I have one, useful bit of kit if you have a spare USB header), and shuffle the DVD drive into the spare slot with that, replacing it with the new IDE drive. 3. Buy a SATA-II HDD, and just leave the IDE one as the boot drive. I still think you'll be much better off replacing the IDE HDD with a SATA one; the speed alone would make it worthwhile.
You have 3 other possibilities 1- Add a second HDD SATA. 2- Replace you HDD with a larger one. However you will need to transfer everything, and I don't if the OS can be successfully transfered. 3- Get a second desktop HDD, and get an external eSATA and USB external harddrive enclosure, like this one: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=17167&vpn=NST-360SU-BK&manufacture=Vantec. This external HDD enclosire provides great cooling for your hard-drive inside, and is relativelly quiet compared to most other cases. It's not the best, but it's not the worst. Intresting features is that it has USB so you can attach to a laptop or other ocmputers that does not have eSATA, or you can use the computer eSATA port behind your computer. If your computer has SATA, but does not have eSATA, this enclosure comes with a PCI add-on slot adapter to convert SATA into eSATA (in reality both plugs are identical, it is just the shape that is a little different. It is designed to hold better the plug). This specific encosure comes with eSATA and USB cable as well as the SATA to eSATA adapter and Power adapter to power it up. NOTE: you cannot attach 2 system simultaneously, where one is on eSATA and the other on USB... Your HDD and HDD controller (in the enclosure) is not a server, it can't manage several simultaneous system calls for data, especially that the 2 mediums are completely different on how they work. USB is one direction at a time, ideal for printers or webcams, and eSATA can transfer data in both directions at the same time. Personal information: If you read any size limit HDD on any hard drive enclosures, they are not really limits, but rather what the company biggest HDD that they tested and promise that it works.
If you use an OS that supports dynamic disks, you can add in another hard drive and create a spanned volume, basically your original hard drive will see the new drive as a continious extension of the original. What OS are you using?
Floppy drives use the fdd connector not IDE. The simplest option is buying a new SATA drive, it's pointless getting another IDE drive.
ok thanks ive got a foxconn motherboard ill dig out the book for it in a bit ive got a friend that has norton ghost so ill borrow that and clone my hdd onto a sata (im using xp but planing to try ubuntu or another version of linux then windows 7 when it comes out) thanks for your help ill keep the floppydrive and memory card drive and just do that and while im at it ill buy a 1tb sata i think ill get this one http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1242289351&sr=8-2 is it any good its arround £80
People always recommend the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TBs, I think because they're either marginally faster or marginally cheaper.
puresilver thanks for recomendation But there is too many bad coments on amazon where they dont work or dail in a month (co.uk) i think ill pay more for a more reliable drive
the samsumg F1 is a very good drive dont trust such utter dribble. it was an error between the drive and SMART type app. SMART software was detecting errors when they were none and it was screwing up the drives. samsung even said this. ive had mine over a year and its fine. It was the first revision of the drive that had this problem and the drive has been out for ages now and has undergone changes I noticed that amazon are also selling 2 variants of the F1. 1 with no model number after it and another with no reviews !!!!! weird also alot of people complaining about gigabyte boards i have 1 now and it works. google it and you will ifnd that samsung says theres nothing wrong with the drives just some issue when people have been checking them for errors i think it just generated alot of hype about them not working at all and then like swine flu has been blown out of all proportions.
Yeah, my teeny little 640GB is certainly rock-solid. I like F1s... but then I like Formula One so maybe it's just involuntary brand association.
your right i got a gigabite motherboard too and they are a pain had a problem with second xp instal sound drivers wouldnt work (conflicting driver) it took hours to fix and it had all clasic signals for hardware failer so i can understand what you are saying
