How to add SATA HD, # of HD's limited?

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achase4u

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I have two western digital caviar SE 80 gig hard drives regular ATA IDE

They are just master and slave, along with two dvd drives master and slave on the other IDE

I have an ASUS K8V SE

I lost the manual, I got it from a friend. I know I have SATA. Can I add something like a western digital 250 gig drive for storage on the SATA? Or is two IDE HD plus a SATA too much...

what kind of SATA drive and cable is compatable with my motherboard? Do I need to enable stuff in bios or do alot to get it going?

I used to be into building computers but fell out of the stuff, so I am not sure about this... would it be best to make the SATA the OS drive too???

I am looking at this one... isnt this a good one? I like the cache size and storage size... will this work - or is my motherboard not compatable...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701
 
There are 26 "available" letters, so theoretically you can have up to 26 drives. However, 2 of those (A: and B:) are reserved for floppies, and you have 2 optical drives, so that leaves you with 22 available letters, ergo you can have up to 22 hard drives (assuming the hardware supports that many :p). You can basically add as many as you need.

I believe that all SATA cables are the same, so any should do, although I could be mistaking. SATA drives are backwards compatable, so a SATA150 drive will work with a SATAII port and vice versa. Both cost basically the same, so I would get a SATAII drive (because I like the best). You shouldn't need to do anything in the BIOS unless you disabled SATA previously.

You can install the OS on a SATA drive.

Edit: I have that drive and I like it, it is really nice.

After googling your mobo, it appears you have 2 SATA150 connectors, so you should be fine.

Any generic SATA cable like thisshould do
 
Thanks so much! I will have to get that drive... I remember when that amount of space was alot of money!!!!!!!!!

Thanks!
 
this is true! that will be crazy.

I have a ton of media and record music in wav forms with many takes so Id like to have some space...

my two 80 gigs could be raid... yes?
 
This is your mobo right? Just want to make sure I am looking at the right one (although they all are basically the same).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131577

Assuming it is it has an integrated RAID controller with RAID1 and RAID 0 capabilities. I really see no benefit for RAIDing your 80GB drives, especially if you plan on using the SATA drive as the main drive. Installing the OS on the SATA drive would give you a modest performance increase (but you would only really notice it during loading of programs, games and the OS.) You can put them in RAID 1 if you want a really secure/stable backup drive, but it is not necessary.

If you want to put the two drives in RAID, you will be required to format them, so I would advise installing your OS on the 250 Gig drive so you can back up anything important.
 
thats cool.

Well. I was thinking to store all my media on the 250 gig... and make that my media/backup drive...

I dont play many games anymore, and all my music is on a secondary drive already... maybe I would benefit from it being a storage drive for backup and media the most...

hmmmm



this is more like mine,

just no wifi. mine isnt in production anymore its pretty old... 2-3 years.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=235&l1=3&l2=14&l3=0
 
Yeah, that the same motherboard.

Putting it as an additional storage drive would be no easiest. Just plug it in and go. :D Setting up the RAID array would be a lot of trouble, with everything involved.
 
Then I think just another drive in there will suit me well! I thank you for your help!
 
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