I need a new drive setup....

[melomania]

Well I have always re-used drives from rig to rig over the past couple years and it wasn't until I got my DFI NF4 Ultra-D that I became interested in SATA drives. I plan on picking up maybe one or two here in a couple months but I am stuck with a small problem.

I need to find out how I can add more IDE devices.

My current 4 devices are:
WD 80gb
WD 60gb
Maxtor 80gb
Sony 52x CDR\RW

I plan on adding another IDE hard drive that a friend just gave away and a new NEC DVD Burner. This may sound bogus but can I use SATA to the hard drives but use an IDE adapter with them? I don't know. You guys tell me what I should do.


PS. Remember, this scenario is if I cannot buy SATA drives just yet.

 

[IanG]

Yup, you need an ata - sata adapter. They fit on the back of the ata drive, so will extend the length a little. They should cost you less than $20 - check out the usual places like newegg, zzf, svc or monoprice.

 

[kumquat]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815102203

Done.

You even get some nifty RAID features.

 

[melomania]

I'm not sure if this is the same thing you said, but here goes.

I HATE the bulkiness of IDE cables. To add more ATA devices, can I use an SATA cable for an ATA hard drive but have a small adapter on the end?

How would this deal work?

 

[kumquat]

I'm not sure if this is the same thing you said, but here goes.

I HATE the bulkiness of IDE cables. To add more ATA devices, can I use an SATA cable for an ATA hard drive but have a small adapter on the end?

How would this deal work?

You can, by using something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998008

I find that less than ideal, and I'm not sure if performance would suffer at all. I'd just use "round" IDE cables, but that's just me:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812104032

 

[IanG]

You can, by using something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822998008

I find that less than ideal, and I'm not sure if performance would suffer at all. I'd just use "round" IDE cables, but that's just me:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812104032

Performance hit is almost negligible using the adapters - all of the first gen sata drives used an adapter chip on-board - they were identical to the regular pata drives except for the extra chip and different cabling.

 

[kumquat]

Performance hit is almost negligible using the adapters - all of the first gen sata drives used an adapter chip on-board - they were identical to the regular pata drives except for the extra chip and different cabling.

Cool, that's good to know.

http://www.mdofpc.com/onlinestore/syba-sdsataide-serialata-to-ide-adapter-p-10599.html

That one looks a little less bulky, too.