Storage Help?

[ekorazn]

What I need: I'm going to set up a computer that is solely dedicated for storage.

I plan on using my NF7-S (socket A with 2400+) for this "project" since I'm making a gaming rig (solely for gaming).

Questions:
1. Can I use the two IDE for optical drives for HDD?
2. Are there any splitters for the IDE (so I can add X amount of drives)?
3. Or how can I maximize the number of drives (for the future and such)
4. The board also contains SATA, would this conflict with my IDE drives? EDIT* I found the answer using the search tool .

 

[defakto]

What I need: I'm going to set up a computer that is solely dedicated for storage.

I plan on using my NF7-S (socket A with 2400+) for this "project" since I'm making a gaming rig (solely for gaming).

Questions:
1. Can I use the two IDE for optical drives for HDD?
2. Are there any splitters for the IDE (so I can add X amount of drives)?
3. Or how can I maximize the number of drives (for the future and such)
4. The board also contains SATA, would this conflict with my IDE drives? EDIT* I found the answer using the search tool .

1) Ide spots are ide spots are ide spots. Any ide device can run on any part of the ide cable, there is no "spot" for it.

2.) No. Ide(ata) does not support more than 2 drives per channel.

3.) Big raid cards that support more drives. 3ware makes some very large 8-12 channel drives that put one drive per channel. Best way if you want to spend the money is get a SAS(serial attached scsi) HBA and put SATA drives on it. SATA 2 and SAS will support port multipliers( I believe that's the term they are using) that will allow multiple drives on SAS channels and since serial ata drives can run on SAS channels it's a high initial cost but will get lower in the future.

4.) You know that one already.