How to add 3rd HD

lexor

lexor

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How do I add a 3rd HD to my PC ?
Do I just need a cable with enough space for the 3rd drive or is there more to it ?

Thanks
 
Are you first two drives on IDE or SATA?

ETA: Beaten to it. If you using SATA, then you can just add more drives on the SATA ports.
 
ide are the same as the cables that you use to connect you optical drives, sata are smaller ports on the motherboard very thin cable vs the ide cables.
 
That could be a problem. How many IDE ports are there on your motherboard?

If you connect a HDD and a DVD drive on the same cable, it will running at the speed of the slowest drive on that IDE cable. i.e. It will massacre the harddrive performance.
 
older motherboards have 2 IDE slots. if he only has 1 on his motherboard then he's screwdrivered for now. better to get SATA. costs about same price and is much faster.
 
You can have 2 IDE drives connected to a single cable (assuming the cable has ports for 2 devices):

[1st IDE-plug on mobo]=====[HDD1, as master]===[HDD2, as slave]

[2nd IDE-plug on mobo]=====[HDD2, as master]===[DVDRW, as slave]
 
HavocXphere said:
That could be a problem. How many IDE ports are there on your motherboard?

If you connect a HDD and a DVD drive on the same cable, it will running at the speed of the slowest drive on that IDE cable. i.e. It will massacre the harddrive performance.
Click to expand...


Two:
1xconnected to DVD writer and CD writer and
1xconnected to my current 2 HD's
 
flarkit said:
You can have 2 IDE drives connected to a single cable (assuming the cable has ports for 2 devices):

[1st IDE-plug on mobo]=====[HDD1, as master]===[HDD2, as slave]

[2nd IDE-plug on mobo]=====[HDD2, as master]===[DVDRW, as slave]
Click to expand...

yes and that is why he needs a 2nd cable.
 
lexor said:
Two:
1xconnected to DVD writer and CD writer and
1xconnected to my current 2 HD's
Click to expand...

erm, if i understand you correctly, then you have a problem. AFAIK, mobos only have 2 IDE slots MAX, which means max 4 IDE /ATA devices. you may need to get a SATA drive.
 
The only other way(as I understand) might be as Mercurial explained :

2x HD's on one IDE plug and

1xHD and DVD Writer on the other IDE plug.

That would mean that I must get rid of my CD writer?

Am I understanding it correctly ?
 
lexor said:
The only other way(as I understand) might be as Mercurial explained :

2x HD's on one IDE plug and

1xHD and DVD Writer on the other IDE plug.

That would mean that I must get rid of my CD writer?

Am I understanding it correctly ?
Click to expand...

yes. that's my understanding of it. your problem will be solved if you get any SATA device so that you can free up one IDE device for your 3rd HD.

edit: you've got a dvd-writer as well as a cd-writer attached, so why not remove the cd-writer and connect the 3rd hard drive?
 
Last edited:
Looks like I will have to get a SATA HD then.

Thanks for the help guys.
 
lexor said:
Looks like I will have to get a SATA HD then.
Click to expand...
Yes...Assuming you mobo can do SATA. Also have a look at the external drives (e.g. Seagate FreeAgent etc). They are cool too.
 
I use a laptop drive (2.5) in an external bay (via USB) for my 3rd drive. Tons of storage and easy to move about....
 
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