Long term damage possible? ATA with 40 pin cable.

[Woodsy]

I am about to install several drives into an old slow fileserver. My goal is
a large amount of space over speed. The pipe is small and the server is slow.
I am not in a hurry! Just tired of changing CD's all the time. I am also to cheap
to buy 4- 40 pin 80 wire cables. I have lots of 40X40 cables and intend on just using
what I have. Do you know of any long term detrimental effects of this hook-up?
Promise cards and Maxtor plus9 ata drives to be less vague.
Any thoughts on cable length? About 36" would sure be nice.

Thanks for reading this far,
Frank

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I am about to install several drives into an old slow fileserver. My goal is
a large amount of space over speed. The pipe is small and the server is slow.
I am not in a hurry! Just tired of changing CD's all the time. I am also to cheap
to buy 4- 40 pin 80 wire cables. I have lots of 40X40 cables and intend on just using
what I have. Do you know of any long term detrimental effects of this hook-up?
Promise cards and Maxtor plus9 ata drives to be less vague.
Any thoughts on cable length? About 36" would sure be nice.

Thanks for reading this far,
Frank

You won't do any damage the old cables will work fine the performance will
just suck. If you want to run 36 inches then you'll need to get TPE
IDE cables, regular PCV cables won't work reliably at that length. You can
tell a TPE cable by its color, they are yellow. PCV cables are grey.
You'll have to buy them off of the internet, if you ask for them at a PC
shop you'll just get blank stares. A 36" TPE cable will cost you in the
neighborhood of $8.

 

[kony]

I am about to install several drives into an old slow fileserver. My goal is
a large amount of space over speed. The pipe is small and the server is slow.
I am not in a hurry! Just tired of changing CD's all the time. I am also to cheap
to buy 4- 40 pin 80 wire cables. I have lots of 40X40 cables and intend on just using
what I have. Do you know of any long term detrimental effects of this hook-up?
Promise cards and Maxtor plus9 ata drives to be less vague.
Any thoughts on cable length? About 36" would sure be nice.

Thanks for reading this far,
Frank

40 conductor cables will limit you to about 28MB/s. That isn't so bad
because the LAN is the primary limitation. It will work fine long-term
except that old standard 40 conductor ribbon cable is more suseptible to
problems from the excessive length of cable you want to use. You can't
possibly have a case that holds drives 3 feet away from the port, even in
a full tower case with PCI card at bottom and drive in top bay, a 24"
cable should be long enough, and even the typical 18" cables are long
enough for most large cases... the problem often isn't the total cable
length but where on the cable the middle connector is positioned if you
need two drives per cable.

 

[Woodsy]

40 conductor cables will limit you to about 28MB/s. That isn't so bad
because the LAN is the primary limitation. It will work fine long-term
except that old standard 40 conductor ribbon cable is more suseptible to
problems from the excessive length of cable you want to use. You can't
possibly have a case that holds drives 3 feet away from the port, even in
a full tower case with PCI card at bottom and drive in top bay, a 24"
cable should be long enough, and even the typical 18" cables are long
enough for most large cases... the problem often isn't the total cable
length but where on the cable the middle connector is positioned if you
need two drives per cable.

Bingo!
The placement of the end connector seems to be a foot from the middle one.
I have a double tower case? with 8 CD on the left, mobo on the right,I hoped
to mount the hard drives in the same case half as the CDs. The IDE CD cable
just made it to the top of the pile of CD's in the left half of the case.
I may have to mount the hard drives in the bay with the motherboard.
Now to find a couple of 3.5" cages.

Thanks,
Frank.

 

[Woodsy]

You won't do any damage the old cables will work fine the performance will
just suck. If you want to run 36 inches then you'll need to get TPE
IDE cables, regular PCV cables won't work reliably at that length. You can
tell a TPE cable by its color, they are yellow. PCV cables are grey.
You'll have to buy them off of the internet, if you ask for them at a PC
shop you'll just get blank stares. A 36" TPE cable will cost you in the
neighborhood of $8.

I will go looking! Thanks.

 

[kony]

Bingo!
The placement of the end connector seems to be a foot from the middle one.
I have a double tower case? with 8 CD on the left, mobo on the right,I hoped
to mount the hard drives in the same case half as the CDs. The IDE CD cable
just made it to the top of the pile of CD's in the left half of the case.
I may have to mount the hard drives in the bay with the motherboard.
Now to find a couple of 3.5" cages.

Might be worthwhile to get some rounded 80 conductor 36" cables anyway,
you can get 3 for about $15 delivered, here:
http://www.svc.com/cables-ata-100-133-round-cables-36--dual-device-ata-100-133-round-cables-.html

 

[Trent©]

I am about to install several drives into an old slow fileserver. My goal is
a large amount of space over speed. The pipe is small and the server is slow.
I am not in a hurry! Just tired of changing CD's all the time. I am also to cheap
to buy 4- 40 pin 80 wire cables. I have lots of 40X40 cables and intend on just using
what I have. Do you know of any long term detrimental effects of this hook-up?
Promise cards and Maxtor plus9 ata drives to be less vague.
Any thoughts on cable length? About 36" would sure be nice.

Thanks for reading this far,
Frank

You may need to change your ATA drive settings. I don't know if
Maxtor has/needs that ability...I've never installed a Maxtor. Their
diagnostic should tell you...and then give you the ability to set it
if need be.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[kony]

You may need to change your ATA drive settings. I don't know if
Maxtor has/needs that ability...I've never installed a Maxtor. Their
diagnostic should tell you...and then give you the ability to set it
if need be.

Over the years I"ve had many versions of maxtors, have at least 4 - 8 here
now, and all (AFAIK) drop down to ATA33 without any effort, though of
course the m'board bios may display that "no 80 conductor cable" message.

 

[Trent©]

Over the years I"ve had many versions of maxtors, have at least 4 - 8 here
now, and all (AFAIK) drop down to ATA33 without any effort, though of
course the m'board bios may display that "no 80 conductor cable" message.

Can their diagnostic software check that setting on the drive, Kony?


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Trent©]

Over the years I"ve had many versions of maxtors, have at least 4 - 8 here
now, and all (AFAIK) drop down to ATA33 without any effort, though of
course the m'board bios may display that "no 80 conductor cable" message.

Another question, Kony...

Why would you even GET that message...if the hard drive wasn't running
at/attempting the higher rate?


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[kony]

Can their diagnostic software check that setting on the drive, Kony?

Don't remember but I'm leaning towards a "yes".

Some drives have that info written to their NVRAM so they always operate
in that mode, it is a mode-limiter to prevent higher speed operation even
if an 80-conductor cable were used. I don't recall that option with any
Maxtors, but since they all dropped down to ATA33 and worked there was no
need to investigate this, they may also have that ability.