RAID mobos...

i want to get a raid board like the kk266r. i know they have 4 ide ports. if i don't want to use a raid configuration, can i use all 4 ide ports for just ide devices, say like just hook up 8 hd if i wanted to?

i want to try out raid, but in case i don't want to use that forever, can i just use those 2 extra ports for regular stuff? having 4 more devices is nice compared to only 4 with 2 ports.

i also noticed the price dropped to $130 at newegg, so that's cool.
thanks for any thoughts...

YES

You will love this board, it is very stable and o/C's well. Here is a FAQ site on the MOBO;

I have a KT7A-Raid and I really didn't buy it for the RAID fuctionality, just so I could hook up 4 extra IDE devices. A word of advice - I have heard it is bad practice to put CDROM's and other removable media on the RAID ports (IDE3 and IDE4). So if you're wanting multiple CDROM's, put them in IDE1 and IDE2 and put your HD's on IDE3 and IDE4 and set your boot device to IDE3 and IDE4. I love having the extra IDE stuff - I think I am going to get a full tower case next time around and I am going to add some HD's and get that internal ZIP I've been wanting for a while (but havent had a free IDE for).

SickBoy

thanks for the replies.

i already have a kk266, but didn't buy the raid at the time cuz it was still a bit expensive, but now that it's $130, i want to get it and try out raid, if not, just to have more ide ports is good.

and i'm glad the price drops are here! $180 for that 1.33ghz is so damn tempting!