Hey guys,

I've been messing around with my server and have just been thinking about data storage on a large scale. Are RAID controllers the only means of expanding hdd capacity on a system? I've seen a picture here on PCA of someone's computer and it had a massive storage array (with 6-7 hdd's) and they all seemed to be connected to a 5.25in device that was connected to the mobo IDE controller. Anyone heard of a 5.25in harddrive controller (ya know, non-pci/pci-e)? Thanks in advance!

Quote: Originally Posted by Jobistober Hey guys, I've been messing around with my server and have just been thinking about data storage on a large scale. Are RAID controllers the only means of expanding hdd capacity on a system? I've seen a picture here on PCA of someone's computer and it had a massive storage array (with 6-7 hdd's) and they all seemed to be connected to a 5.25in device that was connected to the mobo IDE controller. Anyone heard of a 5.25in harddrive controller (ya know, non-pci/pci-e)? Thanks in advance!

are you sure it wasnt 50 pin scsi? ide has a limitation of 2 drives per a cable / connection.

to add more storage, you dont have to add it as a raid. it can be added as jbod (just a bunch of disks). raid just gives redunancy or speed..

Right, I knew about JBOD... but don't you still need a raid controller for that type of array? And the array I saw here had about 6 drives connected to a single cd-rom-looking device... it has several ide ports on the back, and each port had a pair of hdd's connected to it. I'll see if I can find that picture.

ADD-
HERE it is...

Quote: Originally Posted by Jobistober Right, I knew about JBOD... but don't you still need a raid controller for that type of array? And the array I saw here had about 6 drives connected to a single cd-rom-looking device... it has several ide ports on the back, and each port had a pair of hdd's connected to it. I'll see if I can find that picture. ADD- HERE it is...

you would still need a controller.. these days motherboards can support 4 to 6 ide hdds and 8 sata hdds, even before adding an additional card!

now i understand the setup. some of the drives (5 of them) are on a ide raid card. some of them are on ide switchers (meaning that they are not all on at the same time.

with harddrives the way they are now. i wouldn't bother with ide. go sata. then you can hot swap them. each time this person switched his hdds he had to reboot.

Just about all gigabyte motherboard (older models anymore) had 4-6 IDE ports on the board. I always like the idea, but it really stole the space. Now just about every motherboard has 4-8 SATA ports onboard. I would go onbaord if your not looking for serious redundancy, or speed.

The expensive cards are more for expensive data. When you have to have RAID5 and on a large scale, you get one of those.

Otherwise a 4 HDD hot swappable bay works great too. most of them have thier own RAID card in them for RAID5 capabilitys.

Woah, that pic is nuts. Thats a controller box that is linking them JBOD specifically. It seems from his specs he's runnign a varity of cards along with the box. I would suggest the 4 HDD bay ideally, the one in the pimprig tribute case is awesome, its AL too.