A question about SATA drive setups

[Mark Timerding]

I have a question about using SATA drives ....
Currently, I had two IDE hard drives, and one
SEAGATE 80 gb SATA on an A7N8X ....(the boot drive
is one of the IDE, the sata is just for data)

I am getting ready to install a new motherboard, the
Asus K8V along with an AMD64 cpu ...figuring I would have
to reinstall the OS and everything else, I figured why not
go ahead and try one of the new raptor drives.

My question is, to run TWO SATA drives, do they have to
be exact matches, or can you use two different sizes?
As I said, the Seagate is 80gb, and the new one is a
Western Digital 74gb raptor....

If possible I would like to keep using all the harddrives
currently in the system, along with the new 74gb raptor
using it as C: (boot)

Can this be done? I'm sure I have enough power (supply)
if that is the only possible issue. (I have an Antec tru power
550)

If I cant use both Satas ... guess I will just ditch the 80gb
Seagate.

Thanks

 

[Stephan Grossklass]

I am getting ready to install a new motherboard, the
Asus K8V along with an AMD64 cpu ...figuring I would have
to reinstall the OS and everything else, I figured why not
go ahead and try one of the new raptor drives.

My question is, to run TWO SATA drives, do they have to
be exact matches, or can you use two different sizes?

I don't see why they'd have to be exact matches unless you wanted to set
up a RAID array. For ordinary separate drive operation, SATA drives have
to be matched as much as ordinary PATA ones.

Stephan

 

[Leythos]

I have a question about using SATA drives ....
Currently, I had two IDE hard drives, and one
SEAGATE 80 gb SATA on an A7N8X ....(the boot drive
is one of the IDE, the sata is just for data)

I am getting ready to install a new motherboard, the
Asus K8V along with an AMD64 cpu ...figuring I would have
to reinstall the OS and everything else, I figured why not
go ahead and try one of the new raptor drives.

My question is, to run TWO SATA drives, do they have to
be exact matches, or can you use two different sizes?
As I said, the Seagate is 80gb, and the new one is a
Western Digital 74gb raptor....

SATA drives act just like any other IDE drive except that you can only
have one per cable.

You could purchase ANY size SATA drive that the board will support and
it will work fine with the others - as long as the boards supports the
combinations of drives that you install.

If possible I would like to keep using all the harddrives
currently in the system, along with the new 74gb raptor
using it as C: (boot)

Since you are going to install a new drive and OS, booting from it
should not be a problem - just make sure that the BIOS sees the SATA
drives as the boot drives ahead of the IDE ones.

Can this be done? I'm sure I have enough power (supply)
if that is the only possible issue. (I have an Antec tru power
550)

I have the ASUS PC-DL dual Xeon with 2 x 250GB SATA, and 2 X CD-RW
drives, and a tape drive and a floppy.... I also use a 550W PSU and it's
not even close to being over-loaded. You should be fine - it was a great
choice you made to have a 550W PSU, not many people think about that
side of it.

If I cant use both Satas ... guess I will just ditch the 80gb
Seagate.

If you decided to ditch the 80gb, I know where you can send it

 

[Mark Timerding]

I also use a 550W PSU and it's
not even close to being over-loaded. You should be fine

Thanks for the reassurance ..... I guess the only issue is
to figure out HOW exactly I am going to connect all these
devices. I seem to be out of the power connectors from the
ANTEC Power supply ... right now, I have 1 Sata, 2 IDE hard
drives, the Ati Radeon 9800 Pro video card and 2 DVDRW's
connected to the power supply, and that uses up all the avail
4 pin 12v (???) connectors on the supply ...So I need to figure
out, what/how can be jumpered ...

 

[BigBadger]

Just get a Molex 'Y' cable...(splits from one 4 pin molex into two)