Five hard drives in a PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter you know who maybe
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Y

you know who maybe

Hi,
I'm thinking of building a PC to support at least five EIDE devices.

Arcserve Brightstor r11 on Windows 2000 Pro is currently backing up to disk
for us in a five-day rotation and we are storing two days each currently on
250GB drives but we are running out of room.

The M-F daily backup is nearing 125GB. I could buy larger than 250 GB
drives but eventually I would run out again.
If I only had a mother board which supported five 250GB drives I would be
done.

Thanks for any advice.

PS. Yes, we backup to Tape from the disc backup and the tapes go offsite.
 
Here is a thought: What if I just added a 2-channel SATA card to this PC and
bought two SATA drives, to go along with the three 250 EIDE drives? Or do I
have to disable EIDE controller?
 
you said:
Hi,
I'm thinking of building a PC to support at least five EIDE devices.

Arcserve Brightstor r11 on Windows 2000 Pro is currently backing up
to disk for us in a five-day rotation and we are storing two days
each currently on 250GB drives but we are running out of room.

The M-F daily backup is nearing 125GB. I could buy larger than 250 GB
drives but eventually I would run out again.
If I only had a mother board which supported five 250GB drives I
would be done.
Click to expand...

There are lots of PCI IDE cards that support 4x drives in addition to your
motherboard.

They're often sold as RAID cards but work fine just as IDE cards.
 
you know who maybe said:
Here is a thought: What if I just added a 2-channel SATA card to this PC and
bought two SATA drives, to go along with the three 250 EIDE drives?
Click to expand...

Yes, that will work. So will adding a 4 drive IDE controller too.
Or do I have to disable EIDE controller?
Click to expand...

Nope.
 
you know who maybe said:
Hi,
I'm thinking of building a PC to support at least five EIDE devices.

Arcserve Brightstor r11 on Windows 2000 Pro is currently backing up to disk
for us in a five-day rotation and we are storing two days each currently on
250GB drives but we are running out of room.

The M-F daily backup is nearing 125GB. I could buy larger than 250 GB
drives but eventually I would run out again.
If I only had a mother board which supported five 250GB drives I would be
done.

Thanks for any advice.

PS. Yes, we backup to Tape from the disc backup and the tapes go offsite.
Click to expand...


Have you considered using "mobile racks" or "removable trays" such
as those made by Kingwin? You could copy the entire primary HD
to the HD in the removable tray each night and then replace it with
another HD in another removable tray. Kingwin's rack/tray combos
go for about $24 street, and the removable trays go from anywhere
between $14 and $20. Check out their webpage at:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_Cat.asp?CateID=25 . I use the model
with the fan in the bottom of the removable tray, and I find it keeps the
HD very cool:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.asp?LineID=&CateID=25&ID=136

If you want to go Serial ATA with a PCI SATA controller card, Kingwin
makes removable tray assemblies for SATA drives, too:
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_Cat.asp?CateID=47

I use a removable trays to archive periodic backups of my WinXP OS
as bootable clones. If all you want to back up is data, perhaps even
on a separate partition, you can use all kinds of utilities to do that kind
of copy, even drag 'n drop.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
Have you considered using "mobile racks" or "removable trays" such
as those made by Kingwin? You could copy the entire primary HD
Click to expand...


That would be a good idea but we like not having to change the drives when
we are taking long weekends. :-)
 
you said:
Here is a thought: What if I just added a 2-channel SATA card to this PC
and
bought two SATA drives, to go along with the three 250 EIDE drives? Or do
I have to disable EIDE controller?
Click to expand...

Will work fine. You can also get IDE or SATA RAID controllers that support
up to at least 12 drives--there may be some that do more.
 
you know who maybe said:
Hi,
I'm thinking of building a PC to support at least five EIDE devices.

Arcserve Brightstor r11 on Windows 2000 Pro is currently backing up to
disk for us in a five-day rotation and we are storing two days each
currently on 250GB drives but we are running out of room.

The M-F daily backup is nearing 125GB. I could buy larger than 250 GB
drives but eventually I would run out again.
If I only had a mother board which supported five 250GB drives I would be
done.

Thanks for any advice.

PS. Yes, we backup to Tape from the disc backup and the tapes go offsite.
Click to expand...

Just a thought seeing as no one else has mentioned it... If you have a high
end CPU + lots of drives, fans, DVD+CD drives + other devices your
power supply may run out of puff. So you might need to or upgrade the
existing one or fit an extra p/s just to power the additional drives to
ensure it all stays stable.

HTH

Ian
 
Hi,
I'm thinking of building a PC to support at least five EIDE devices.

Arcserve Brightstor r11 on Windows 2000 Pro is currently backing up to
disk for us in a five-day rotation and we are storing two days each
currently on 250GB drives but we are running out of room.

The M-F daily backup is nearing 125GB. I could buy larger than 250 GB
drives but eventually I would run out again.
If I only had a mother board which supported five 250GB drives I would be
done.

Thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...

Use SATA drives, that you can connect and disconnect easily, even when the
computer is on.

Or use external USB drives, slower though.

So, you can use so many drives you want, buy them outdated and cheap, and
put them in different secured places.
 
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