Too many PATA Optical Drives

[Grain]

I ordered a few new drives, all PATA, but already have some on the shelf due to lack of PATA connections. Does anyone have any experience with PCI controller cards, or any other form of adding more drives? There's always external USB boxes, does anyone use a particular brand that works well? ex Vantec, Zynet etc. Any other ideas?

[hoxlund]

sorry im starting to get away from pata optical drives, just because most new motherboards only carry 1 ide port

[roog]

I have an Intel D975Xbx motherboard which has only one ATA IDE connector. I have successfully added two Syba SD-ATA133R PCI Ultra ATA/133 IDE Host Controllers to my configuration. I have installed 3 LG GSA-H42L dvd writers, one on each controller, and am able to write to all 3 drives, at full speed, using Nero 7 and the multiple drives option. You can install up to 10 drives using this hardware, but I have determined that write speeds drop to 2X if you write to more than one drive, at the same time, on the same controller.

If you are using windows Vista, you need to install bios version B3224 on the SYBA controllers. It is not available on the SYBA site but can be found on the Silicon Image site at http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=31. The Vista driver is there as well

[Grain]

Thanks, I ordered one made by St-Labs yesterday, has the same Silicon Image 680 chipset as your Syba, so I'm hopeful it will work.