What to do with 3-4 hard drive for storage?

beau_safken

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Jun 25, 2002

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San Francisco CA

• Jul 24, 2006

• #1

I have 3-4 hard drives that I had installed in my old computer. However, my new computer will crap out if you add more than the one hard drive to it. I swear the VIA has to be the worse chipset for SATA ever.

Anyway, I have 3-4 drives that I want to be able to use but I can't plug them into my computer. What do you guys suggest I do?

I looked into external case enclosures, but I dont know. At 20-25 bucks a pop I can build a cheap computer to hold many many many drives. What should I do guys?

Any hints would be nice and greatly appreciated.

 

SavageBasher

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Nov 16, 2003

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Northeast PA

• Jul 24, 2006

• #2

you could get a pci card, or like you said just build a smaller computer as a file server. I myself have 4 hard drives and a dvd burner in my main rig

 

boris_37

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Jan 10, 2006

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Calgary, Alberta

• Jul 24, 2006

• #3

Yeah adamwinn had some on the storage classifieds but they are all sold. Your best bet (just like me) is to buy a SATA/RAID card to make up for not being able to add more. Granted though if you get one with a good RAID on it, or with lots of slots it will cost you.

 

Mr. Roboto

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Dec 6, 2005

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New Hampshire

• Jul 24, 2006

• #4

Another vote for the pci card. I live having all my drives in my tower, rathern than spewed about my desk in enclosures.

 

OP

beau_safken

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• Jul 24, 2006

• Thread Starter
• #5

Ok i'll look into a PCI card for that. It would sure be nice to have my hard drives back

I just bought this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132006

Hopefully this should fix the problem with my mobo not allowing me to boot when I add more than 1 HDD to the Mobo.

 

Last edited: Jul 24, 2006

wreckwriter

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Jun 25, 2006

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Florida, USA

• Jul 24, 2006

• #6

I have an Abit VT7, fairly similar to your mobo I think. My VIA chipset handles 2 SATA drives in RAID 0 plus 2 IDE drives, plus 2 CD/DVD drives just fine.

Maybe all your extra drives are SATA? If so then I guess a PCI card is the only answer.

 

OP

beau_safken

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• Jul 24, 2006

• Thread Starter
• #7

But im not doing RAID, just a single HDD. So its doesnt work when there are 2 not in RAID.

 

Audioaficionado

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Apr 29, 2002

• Jul 24, 2006

• #8

wreckwriter said:

I have an Abit VT7, fairly similar to your mobo I think. My VIA chipset handles 2 SATA drives in RAID 0 plus 2 IDE drives, plus 2 CD/DVD drives just fine.

Maybe all your extra drives are SATA? If so then I guess a PCI card is the only answer.

Click to expand...

My Samsung SATA drives have a jumper to select either SATA 150 or SATA 300 so they can be used with the slower/older controllers.

 

wreckwriter

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• Jul 25, 2006

• #9

beau_safken said:

But im not doing RAID, just a single HDD. So its doesnt work when there are 2 not in RAID.

Click to expand...

I see. That's interesting. I never tried my SATA drives outside of RAID so I can't say if mine works that way or not.

 

SavageBasher

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Nov 16, 2003

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Northeast PA

• Jul 25, 2006

• #10

Have you tried plugging in the drives once you are in windows?

 

I

imgod22222

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Jun 29, 2006

• Jul 30, 2006

• #11

i got a rosewill card with 2 sata and it was hell to get it to work. Gook luck!