12 IDE Drives

D

Dumass_Freakboy

Gawd
Joined
Dec 20, 2000
Messages
590
Hello my fellow [H]'ers.
I'm currently working on a fileserver which i'm looking to put 12 IDE drives into. I'm using the ABIT NF7-S 1.2. I have two controller cards, both promise. I have successfully gotten two promise cards to work in one system before (where there was only 1 IDE controller already there). I was having some problems with my other computer which had 4 controllers on it plus the video card (Adaptec 39320a-r, promise tx2000, two onboard IDE & SATA) , and this system will now have 4 controllers on it (Promise 133, TX2000 onboard IDE & SATA) & a video card as well.

I have narrowed my problem down to the system ROM on the motherboards not having enough space for all of these cards, and was wondering if anybody knew of a solution to this, or of a mobo which has 12 IDE headers on it?

Please no questions about why IDE, it's what I have onhand.
 
Are you even going to have enough power to cover the 12 hard drives?? A friend of mine was unable to get above 8 or so, even with a quality dual rail setup..
 
you might try to disable some of the onboard crap the mobo has that youll never use to free up some IRQ's for all those cards.
 
^^^ I think that's your best bet, but I'm not sure if you want to spend $100 to get it all working or not.
 
you could also use a couple of SATA to IDE adapters. i know that board only has 2 SATA ports but it at least gets you closer. i use the one that came with my NF7-S 2.0 all the time and it works fine. (i even use it on my AN8 that has a similar Sil Image SATA controller)
 
I do have one of those adapters - will need a second... will only get me 2 drives there... I was actually just looking into power supplies right now... :p Was just looking in the power supply forum - the link about selecting a power supply... but the link to the utility to select your power supply isn't working :(

Staggered spin-up.. I don't think it's available on the cards I have right now... :( - I'll probably end up needing a 550W good quality PS for this. I might have to find a place to put a 2nd power supply :eek:

Heres my project -> http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1021098

I'm hoping I don't have to buy a 4 channel IDE controller - I want to keep my costs down if possible... the controller would just be for this system.

Damn mobo manufacturers and their inability to install more system ROM on their boards! I've heard people with SLI set-ups are having similar problems....
 
Well I splurged and bought a 620W Enermax Liberty PS - I haven't booted the system to see if it recognizes both cards during boot... but I'm not too sure If it will. Any body have any reccomendations for 6 channel IDE cards?? Staggered spin-up would be nice... but I my new PS should be able to handle it.
 
Ctrl_Alt_Delete said:
you could also use a couple of SATA to IDE adapters. i know that board only has 2 SATA ports but it at least gets you closer. i use the one that came with my NF7-S 2.0 all the time and it works fine. (i even use it on my AN8 that has a similar Sil Image SATA controller)
Click to expand...


You mean IDE to SATA. The serielle adapter that came with my NF7-S v2.0 totally killed the performance of the drive I hooked it up to.
 
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