3 HDDs??

[Franco]

Ive finally received my new computer after mine got frazzled by a power surge (thank you Mr house insurance man!!)

I took the 80 and 160GB HDDs out of my old comp and my new one came with an 80GB one (luckily my old HDDs survived intact.)

320GB capacity may be a bit excessive but as ive got it I may as well make full use of it.

Ill use the preinsatlled 80Gb one for system/programs etc.

Ill use the 160GB one for MAME and the other emulators I use (with ROMs that I legally own of course!)

[spiffyshoes]

You should be able to get 4 IDE devices in your comuter.  3 HDD and a CD/DVD Drive.

[paigeoliver]

A "normal" computer can take up to 4 IDE drives (hard drives and CD rom drives), if you need more you can buy an IDE controller card for under $20 on ebay. For a while I was using one of those and had 7 hard drives and 1 DVD RW drive in my computer.

The IDE controller card will allow you another 4 drives. Anything more than that and you are going to need a server case and a big old server power supply.

[markrvp]

Yes, you can put the drive in an external drive case that hooks up via USB 2.0.  This gives you plug and play capability and/or the ability to move large files from one computer to another by moving the drive between computers.

[Franco]

Wow, three replies in almost as many minutes! Thanks!! 

Ive got a dvd burner and a dvd rom too. I could get rid of the rom but it is handy for dvd => dvd.

Hmmm, both solutions seem good. I like the IDE controller idea to keep it all internal but I also like the USB housing for the portability.

Think ill nip to our nearest PC World and price up both options. I could wait and buy of the net but im impatient to get mameing again after being 'puter-less for a week, especially after just finishing my 1st cab (pics to follow in the next couple of days.)

Thanks again!

[DreamWeb]

DVD->DVDR is hardly a good enough reason to keep two dvd drives in your comp these days.

Not only is it usually just as fast to go dvdr->hd->dvdr... but, it's also more reliable.

I'd say dump the plain dvd drive.

d.

[MonitorGuru]

Just in case if your new computer is a new Dell 4700 or 8400, be aware that it no longer provides 4 IDE ports.

The new motherboads with PCI Express include 2x IDE [PATA] ports (1 channel, master/slave) plus 2x SATA ports (1 channel, 2 drives).

So then if your new hard drive is a SATA drive, you can only put 2 IDE [PATA] drives in your system and not 3.

You can of course purchase PCI based IDE controller cards (sometimes for virtually nothing when people got extra ones included with "big" hard drives of the past in order to use them) to extend the amount of IDE you can have.


As far as DVD->DVDR---I agree with the others, copy to hard drive first.. more reliable than on-the-fly.  Plus I would really suggest, IF you have room/power/connectors, keep both, and use the DVD player just to play DVD's and save the laser on your burner.  Though it sounds like you're quite full as it is.

[paigeoliver]

Yes, if you need an ide expansion card, get one on ebay, they cost almost nothing on ebay because they tend to get bundled with new drives whenever faster drives first come out.

Chances are fairly good that the card itself might be slower than your onboard ide, so put your least important drives on it (I know my card is Ultra 66, but the mobo is Ultra 133).

[markrvp]

It used to be advised to not put an HD and a CD (DVD) drive on the same IDE bus.  It killed the performance of the HD.  Does XP's ability to individually select the drive's DMA capacity make this an old notion?

Not that anyone would do this, but if you rip DVDs using DVD Decryptor or such, a standalone DVD-ROM drive will typically have faster read speeds than a DVD-R or DVD+R drive.  Makes ripping DVDs to the HD faster (for your own backup purposes, of course).  Thus, having the two DVD drives is justifiable for this purpose.

[Lilwolf]

btw, keep your first 80 just windows + installed apps

your second all your emulation stuff... So if you decide to jump to XP you don't have to worry about your roms... and you can do it with reformatting your drive (good thing).

I would probably keep the extra 80 off your system until you needed it...  You might find another project (TIVO type white box?) that would be more useful.  Your only adding wear / tear on a device you have no imediate use for

or sell it (buy/sell/trade)... Keep the money for a year until you actually need it... and buy a 300ghz drive for the same money.   Sitting on near new computer hardware isn't all that useful.  It depreciates VERY fast... and cash doesn't... (*depending on the current administration in office*)

[SteveJ34]

Another option would be to acquire a RAID controller (I like FastTraks from Promise), create a mirror with those 80's, and make this your primary drive(s) for OS and applications, etc...