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3 IDE HD's with no raid?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by davidbacsik, 21 Aug 2006.

  1. davidbacsik

    davidbacsik What's a Dremel?

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    I'm pretty new to a lot of hardware stuff, and I was just wondering if it's possible to have 3 IDE harddrives, with no raid? I ask, because I'm running a FreeNAS box, and i have a 2 GB HD laying around that I'd like to install the OS on, instead of going out to buy another thumbdrive.
     
  2. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    It can be done, as long as your motherboard has two IDE ports. Just don't expect to get good bandwidth when moving files between the CD-rom drive and the hard drive on the same cable.
     
  3. davidbacsik

    davidbacsik What's a Dremel?

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    Would this be how I set it up?

    Cable 1:
    CD Drive - Slave
    Boot Drive - Master

    Cable 2:
    Data Drive - Master
    Data Drive - Slave

    Right, does this make sense?
     
  4. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    It makes sense, yes, but when you're installing your OS, it'll be moving data from your CD-ROM drive to your boot drive. With Windows, anyway, doing it like that would make the install take forever, because of bandwidth limitations. Also, having both of your data drives on the same cable will limit bandwidth when you're pulling data off both of them. I would suggest this:

    Cable 1 (primary IDE channel):
    Boot drive: Master.
    Data drive: Slave.

    Cable 2 (secondary IDE channel):
    CD drive: Master.
    Data drive: Slave.

    That way, you'll get full bandwidth from your CD-rom drive to your boot drive, and also full bandwidth when you're pulling data from your data drives.
     
  5. davidbacsik

    davidbacsik What's a Dremel?

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    the os will be installed from one of the other drives (it's freenas, it'll work), but i think having the data drives seperate would make sense.
     
  6. davidbacsik

    davidbacsik What's a Dremel?

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    Yay! It totally works with that setup (post number 4). And , after I finished I realized I can add another two drives by taking out my floppy drive, and if I remove the CD drive, that's another three! Sweet. Thanks again.
     
  7. airchie

    airchie What's a Dremel?

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    The floppy drive has a different connector from the IDE HDDs.
    Unless you were referring to physical space in the case being freed up?
     
  8. davidbacsik

    davidbacsik What's a Dremel?

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    Isn't there just a cross in the cable? If I plugged in a normal cable would it not react like any other IDE slot?
     
  9. Techno-Dann

    Techno-Dann Disgruntled kumquat

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    No... It's a different number of pins, and a different interface. They're not cross-compatible.
     

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