new system, good idea to go for new drives or recycle the older ides?

[reaperr]

hey everyone first topic for me :D

anyways while cm is restocking their cases on the parts shop *i'm going for the stacker 830 evo* i have been thinking about my storage

my abit mobo is pretty extensive since i have 6 sata ports ready to go….it supports raid on the board but I dunno about that as its gonna be a file server/gaming machine

only problem is that i have alot of ide drives *about 5 or 6 still working* and a single ide port that i'm already using for my dual dvd drives so thats out of the picture

i could always use a pci ide card but don't need the mess lol

currently have a few sata drives.....the seagate 7200.9 400 gig is purring just fine and the pos 2x 250 maxtors :mad:...good deal back then but they're on the verge of collapse :o

so I have a few options

#1 go with a bunch of these adapters and use the 400 gig as the main

http://home.comcast.net/~royce321/idesata.JPG
Which is the cheapest way to go……this is my first choice as I’ve tested them all on a spare machine….didn’t click…and all the data was accessible

#2 buy some newer drives and spend all day transferring files with this guy

http://home.comcast.net/~royce321/adapter.JPG

Maybe the 7200.11’s, or the WD’s as I like that brand also.
I thought about Samsung, but I read on newegg how their F1 drives aren’t nvidia board friendly….as my boards an 680i I dunno

#3 just buy a couple drives and meet somewhere in the middle

There’s lots of data…..mostly movies and games and other stuff

I’m still scratching my head so comments would be helpful…..thanks :)

[DonDon]

Well, it depends on how much time and headaches down the line you want to save.

Anytime you complicate things, you increase the chance of problems. If you run several small drives through those adapters, you increase the chance of problems in the future.

I personally would go with a couple of drives in the 750 - 1 TB range. You will find your performance to be better with the newer drives also.

I have been using a 7200.11 for a month and am very pleased with it in every way so far.

Don

[reaperr]

well i don't really wanna increase my chance of problems in the future heh for sure :)

unfortunately theres always bound to be headaches

[DonDon]

unfortunately theres always bound to be headaches

Oh, no doubt, but you can take steps to decrease the likelihood of them.

On the system I just replaced, I had a single 36 gig system drive, and 3, 18 gig drives that I made a striped set in windows for data. It worked fine for 3 years. The only reason I did it that way was that I had the drives, and didn't want to spend the money for a single larger drive. Given a choice, that would not be the preferred way to run though.

Unless you really like playing with hardware, keep it simple.

Fewer drives will help things run cooler and decrease stress on the power supply also.

Don

[kristof]

Well, it depends on how much time and headaches down the line you want to save.

Anytime you complicate things, you increase the chance of problems. If you run several small drives through those adapters, you increase the chance of problems in the future.


Agree 100%

I had serious reservations about putting one of those SATA<->ATA bridges in the path of my precious data. How well are those bridges manufactured? What's the quality control like? Probably not good considering their price...

So I bought one as an experiment. It ran for five minutes before dying. Concerns justified!

[Danny Bui]

How big are these IDE drives?

If those IDE drives are pretty big and you still want to use them, I recommend getting this external enclosure use them as secondary backup:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332008

Use your four biggest IDE drives and slap them in. Now you have an external hard drive for backup.

[reaperr]

ide drives

3 maxtors.... 2x 250 and 1x 200

3 wd.............2x 120 and 1x 200

1 200 gig seagate

so yea lots of data :)

i'm thinking a few big drives should do nice to replace them all with

i'm not big on using enclosures.....those ide drives are gathering up dust so i know they wont last much longer :mad:

anyways i was thinking a really fast drive for booting the os and the other drives for whatever

any suggestions or ideas on other models i havent thought of?

[kristof]

ide drives

i'm not big on using enclosures.....those ide drives are gathering up dust so i know they wont last much longer :mad:


I've seen occasional data corruption problems with USB enclosures too. They were on the order of a few bits per 100G transferred but that's still unacceptable IMHO.

In one external USB enclosure I tracked the problem down to the little one inch long PATA cable between the bridge board and the drive. The quality of every component in the data path really matters.

I wouldn't trust an enclosure unless it was manufactured by a reputable company and marketed towards high-end IT or server use.

[reaperr]

the only times i've had to use an enclosure is when i was missing a cable or was too lazy to wire the drive like usual lol

i know the feeling of corruption as i've had drives go crazy on me....but thats a rare occurance

[SmokeRngs]

If you have the money for new drives, then buy some new SATA drives. You'll definitely be pleased about everything overall. Less wiring mess, fewer drives for the same amount of storage and the newer drives are pretty much guaranteed to be faster.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/207/1/1.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tnum=33&id=207)