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M1Accord
12-02-09, 12:50 AM
I am next to clueless about hard drive technology since I got out of the game for 4 years, focusing only on external backup drives instead of internal drives and their technology. I like to ask if there is a way to figure out if a newly purchased budget PC have SATA drives/hookup and if SATA drives are the standard now for internal. I also like to know if newer computer can still accommodate IDE drives as I have a few decent size ones that I love to stick into my new PC to use as storage or backup. Finally, is there limitation on how many drives a PC can have. I know my older Athlon from 5 years ago can only accommodate 4 IDE drives total.

My new PC is an HP - Pavilion Desktop with AMD Athlon™ II X4 Quad-Core Processor - Model: p6210y. Here is the link to the specs: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Desktop+with+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+X 4+Quad-Core+Processor/9549401.p?id=1218122580360&skuId=9549401
BossBorot
12-02-09, 11:24 AM
Those specs don't say if you have any IDE slots. These days most motherboards have at most one slot, some have none, which means two IDE drives max. If you have a pci slot open you could get a card that will add more IDE slots so that you could add more of your IDE drives.

Also it looks like that case cant fit many hard drives so you may run into a physical space problem as well.

Posting a pic of the internals of you computer would help. All that you would need to do is take the side panel off and snap a pic.
moto211
12-02-09, 07:19 PM
The only real limitation that I know of is the limitation of space and ports. The space limitation can be overcome with a bigger case and the port limitation can be overcome with the addition of an add-on pci or pcie card. For example, my board only has six internal sata ports but I have seven sata hard drives and a sata dvd burner. I purchased a pcie 2 port sata card and can now accomodate all the devices. Also, my hard drive racks only hold a total of 6 drives, so I put the seventh drive in one of my bays that was meant for a floppy drive.