Can i add a third disk? i have two ribbon cables, each with two ATA connections. on has two HDs and the second has two optical drives.

I dont need two optical drives, but I'm pretty sure I dont wanna hang a HD off of the same cable as my DVD drive, did I read the the HD would perform poorly?

How do I attach the drive tot eh MOBO? do I need a PCI ATA card? does such a thing exist? Am I off base here, am I limited to two drives?

That 400GB dist sure looks nice.

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

You don't want to mix fast and slow drives if you can help it, since everything on that IDE channel is limited by the slowest device, but you can in a pinch. Otherwise you're going to need an add in disk controller or to take advantage of other channles on the board (like SATA). Since this is a PATA drive you're looking at a speed hit or a card that could add substantially to the cost.

Disclaimer: I haven't checked to see if the current KnoppMyth supports USB-based storage.

With that said, on other machines, primarily for heat/fan/power supply reasons, I often add drives using external USB 2.0 enclosures and/or adapters like this one: http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?in ... -N&cat=HDD

Either way, fast and you don't have to risk toasting something inside the box.

-brendan

I also have four devices in my box on two IDE ports. I have one optical (DVD-RW) and three hard drives in an LVM array. I was concerned about performance so I used hdparm to test the speed of the drives and found to my surprise that the drives bench identically whether paired with the "slow" DVD drive or another hard disk. I think maybe the speed degradation only happens when both devices are in use. My optical is rarely used so I haven't noticed a hit in performance.

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It should since USB storage been a part of the Linux kernel for a while now. I should probably just plug something in and ty it to be sure...

However the one problem with USB storage that I've seen is that it uses a bunch of CPU cycles. When I do something as simple as copy photos from a USB2 CF drive on my workstation it makes the CPU work hard enough and generate enough heat that the CPU fan steps up two speeds...

BTW - Liv2cod have you looked to see if your DVD drive is a slow device. I know my DVD ROM is limited to UDMA2... If you've got a 16x double layer drive it might be faster...

I just checked my Pioneer DVD-RW and it's UDMA2 as well.

For fun, I just ran hdparm -tT on my drive and it reports:



That's just as good as the other pair of drives on /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd so I'm a happy camper.

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Western Digital 250GB WD2500JBRTL UATA100 8MB Buffer
After Rebate: $ 89.99

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/3620115

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA