Controiller card

[XpUser]

Hi,

I currently have a Asus A7V333 motherboard (no-raid). I have two HDs (on
primary channel), a CD burner and DVD drive (on the secondary channel). A
friend of mine recently got some free removable hard drives kits from his
work place (inc HD). He asked if l wanted one, and not wanting to give up a
free offer, 1 said yes.

My problem is that all IDE channels are full, l am assuming that the kit
will need a IDE channel (master or slave) to get it to work, along with a
power supply connector. If so what is the best PCI controller card, l
should purchase, that will suit my needs? Also what would be the best
configuration for mysetup once l have purchased said controller card? i.e
would it be beneficial to move my slave HD onto master on the controller
card and add the removeable HD as a slave on the primary channel, or leave
HD configuration as it is and add the removeable HD to the controller card.

Thanks

 

[Rod Speed]

I currently have a Asus A7V333 motherboard (no-raid). I have
two HDs (on primary channel), a CD burner and DVD drive (on
the secondary channel). A friend of mine recently got some free
removable hard drives kits from his work place (inc HD). He asked
if l wanted one, and not wanting to give up a free offer, 1 said yes.

There may be a good reason they were discarded, or it
might just be that they are smaller than they need now.

My problem is that all IDE channels are full,

The normal thing with your config is to just replace one of the hard
drives with a removable bay kit and if the free drives are significantly
smaller than your non boot drive, just put your non boot drive into
one of the bay kits in place of the free drive that came with it.

It doesnt usually make a lot of sense to have more than
a couple of hard drives in a system at once with non raid.

l am assuming that the kit will need a IDE
channel (master or slave) to get it to work,

Yes, you would need another IDE channel. Master/slave is
how the drive is configured, separate issue to the IDE channels.

along with a power supply connector.

Thats usually pretty easy to arrange just by using
say a Y power adapter for the 2 cdrom drives and
using the power connnector released for the bay kit.

If so what is the best PCI controller card,
l should purchase, that will suit my needs?

The Promise cards are a bit crudely designed on some
of the fine detail, but they do work and are cheap.

Also what would be the best configuration for mysetup once
l have purchased said controller card? i.e would it be beneficial
to move my slave HD onto master on the controller card and add
the removeable HD as a slave on the primary channel, or leave HD
configuration as it is and add the removeable HD to the controller card.

The last config would generally be best.