3 Optical drives in one PC. How?

[cold_fusion]

Hello! I gotta a question for you guys.

I have a Pionner DVD-120S dvd player, Pionner DVR-A06D dvd burner and a Sony CRX-195E cd burner. My question is how can I install all of these drives in one PC once I only have 2 IDE channels in my MSI-865PE Neo2 series mother-board? My first "goal" is to use DVD-120S to rip DVD's, DVR-A06D to burn DVD's and CRX-195E to burn CD's. My second "goal" is to make 1:1 copies without having 2 drives on the same IDE channel. That is unconditional. I must do that as described above so please don't suggest that my Pionner DVD burner can burn CD's as well. I already know that .

My current configuration is...

1st IDE Channel:

a. Master -> Hard drive
b. Slave -> N/A

2nd IDE Channel:

a. Master -> Pionner DVR-A06D
b. Slave -> Sony CRX-196E

I've also researched on "IDE-Cards". Could that be a way?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post

[Ian]

Yeah, putting in another IDE controller is a possible solution. Keep in mind that a number of optical drives don't want to work well when connected to IDE addon cards. I'm not sure if that's the case with your drives.

You could also make your drives external. The price of external cases has come down a lot and you can find a USB 2.0 or FireWire card for less than $20.

[cold_fusion]

I have the firewire feature on my Audigy sound card & MSI motther board. I also have a firewire cable. Where's' the firewire "hook" behind my CD/DVD drives? And finally, why CD/DVD drives do not work well with IDE cards?

Thanx for the fast feedback

[Ian]

There isn't a FireWire plug on internal drives. You'll need to get a case like this one:

http://www.dealsonic.com/bymecoidetof2.html

You might be better off using USB 2.0 if your motherboard supports it. Those cases seem to be cheaper.

I'm not sure why some drives don't work well with them. Most people have problems enabling DMA for their drive when connected to an addon card.

[bichi]

I've been using this configuration for many years with different MBs, HDs and CDRW/DVDRW drives.
I've found over time, this configuration flexible and most importantly, maintains high-performance
with very little interface overhead. All the storage devices stay "master," except the last MB IDE port,
which makes things less confusing, especially with "late night" work deadlines.
All the harddrives are dockable, since I have to change OSs quickly. No DMA issues as well.

I have heard optical drives may not operate predictably with "add-on" IDE cards and can't confirm
nor deny this. I have never tried optical drives on an "add-on" IDE port.

Current Configuration:
ASUS P4T533-C - 2.8G - 512mB 1066 RDRAM
OS: XP Pro SP1

Promise Ultra133 TX2:
IDE1: IBM GPX120 40G <--boot drive
IDE2: IBM GPX120 40G

MOTHERBOARD:
IDE1 (Pri): TEAC 540 CDRW <--boot CD
IDE1 (Sec): RICOH RW-5125A DVDRW

IDE2 (Pri): LITEON 401S DVDRW
IDE2 (Sec): open - (docking tray for changeable harddrives)

[BMR]

1st IDE Channel:

a. Master -> Hard drive
b. Slave -> N/A

2nd IDE Channel:

a. Master -> Pionner DVR-A06D
b. Slave -> Sony CRX-196E

Is the Primary slave not physically available or you just dont want to hook it up to the cable to keep the hard drive free. If so , put the dvd reader on that hookup, since it could be the ripper for both cd's and dvd's and would not impact upon hard disk operations as the hard disk is not going to be overly taxed while the reader is ripping a cd or dvd.

BMR

[Mystery Man]

In my comouter ive got all sata disks. So that leaves all ide ports free for optical drives All up ive got 7 drives. 4 sata disks & 3 optical drives on the ide ports. optical drives are the liteon 522452, liteon 16x dvd rom, and pioneer 106D DVD Burner. I use the liteon dvd rom for ripping because its between 2 & 3 times quicker at ripping than the dvd burner. Motherboard is abit IC7 Max 3. If the dvd burner wasnt so slow at ripping then i would only have two optical drives in main puter

[dodecahedron]

if you intend to use an external case for a drive, you should read this topic:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12097

[cfitz]

I second BMR's recommendation. Why don't you want to make the 120S the primary slave? Cable won't reach?

cfitz

[aviationwiz]

In my comouter ive got all sata disks. So that leaves all ide ports free for optical drives

Cool, someone else who is all SATA as well. What hard drives do you have? I've got a 36GB Raptor and a Diamond Max Plus 9 (120GB). I have 3 optical drives hooked up, one IDE port left open, as that bay is being used up by my Audigy.

[Kennyshin]

Aralion.co.kr has a RAID card that supports up to 12 HDD or ODD but it costs US$150. I already have a RAID card with 4 ATA-100 connectors. I can install up to 4 DVD writers in this PC while connecting all hard drives to a PCI card.

I bought three Samsung hard drives this week. 160GB 2MB 7200RPM x 2 (about US$115 each) and 160GB 8MB 7200RPM S-ATA x 1 (about US$130 each). Samsung is the only hard drive maker in South Korea that still says 2-year warranty.

[Phoenix '97]

I've had a number of optical drives hooked up to a Promise 66 PCI IDE card. My current configuration is as follows:
Primary Master: 120GB HDD
Primarty Slave: 60GB HDD
Secondary Master: DVD-RW
Secondary Slave: CD-RW
Promise Card: DVD-ROM
Even though I can't find the option to enable DMA on the DVD-ROM drive, it seems to be enabled by default; CPU usage at 8X is 8%.

[DVD_ADDICT]

I have my set up as follows:

PRIMARY MASTER: MAXTOR 60 GB 7200 RPM HARD DRIVE
PRIMARY SLAVE: MAXTOR 60 GB 7200 RPM HARD DRIVE

SECONDARY MASTER: PLEXTOR 708A
SECONDARY SLAVE: TOSHIBA 1612 DVD-ROM HACKED

MAXTOR ATA 133 PCI CONTROLLER CARD: PLEXTOR 40X12X40 CD BURNER

SHUTTLE MOTHERBOARD AV49N
PENTIUM 4 2.4 GHZ CHIP
KINGSTON 512 DDRAM

Only problem I had was I ordered a OEM PROMISE CONTROLLER CARD and it turned out to be defective. Got a Retail MAXTOR CONTROLLER CARD from OFFICE DEPOT and it worked perfectly. LOL! The MAXTOR CONTROLLER CARD is made by PROMISE TECHNOLOGY. Go figure! I kept my dvd-rom because it can rip faster.

[VEFF]

I use a PCI-based Promise ATA controller card in each of my PCs to allow the addtion of more optical drives.

The only CD/DVD burning software I own that doesn't like this
kind of connection for optical drives is Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator.

[dvd-boxer]

Well I have a

Lite-on 16x- master (onboard IDE)
nec-1300a - slave

WD120gig (onboard IDE 2)

samsung 48x cdrw - master (ata133 promise card)