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View Full Version : Does using a separate PCI Ultra ATA controller disable your onboard IDE's?

singularity2006
08-28-2003, 04:35 AM
So I have this Ultra ATA 100 PCI card but it came OEM, no manuals. It is uses the Promise PDC20268 chip and I was wondering how this works with the system. By plugging this in, does it automatically override the onboard IDE channels or is it possible to run all of the channels onboard and off?
beaker
08-28-2003, 08:29 AM
nope, onboard controller will still work fine.
singularity2006
08-28-2003, 03:21 PM
wh0a, so I could be using up to 8 devices at the same time??? 4 using the onboard IDE's and 4 on the card itself?!
GregHess
08-28-2003, 03:45 PM
Just remember, each IDE channel requires an IRQ.

Eventually you'll run into massive sharing issues if you flood the computer with IDE devices...or at least, could if you had a finiky device.

Thus one of the greatest benefits of SCSI. 1 IRQ, tons of devices.
singularity2006
08-28-2003, 08:59 PM
wowie that sounds like a good deal to me. I'm pretty sure I'd never have enough room in my Dell to fit anymore hard drives but now I can have each device running on its own IDE channel instead of sharing a channel. That should improve performance quite a bit. I'll just leave my CD ROM and Zip on the onboard IDE's which are ATA66 and stick my hot swap and hard drive on the Ultra ATA card... everyone on their own channel... ahhhh, sounds good to me. =)
GregHess
08-28-2003, 10:52 PM
Sing,

For future reference....

Most 3rd party ATA controller cards do NOT allow for the use of IDE devices OTHER THAN Harddrives.

Aka you usually can't connect a CDROM to a ATA Controller card.

Their mainly used for providing support for harddrives which the motherboard can not. (Aka 200 GB drives, SATA, etc)
beaker
08-28-2003, 11:04 PM
Originally posted by GregHess
Sing,

For future reference....

Most 3rd party ATA controller cards do NOT allow for the use of IDE devices OTHER THAN Harddrives.

Aka you usually can't connect a CDROM to a ATA Controller card.

Their mainly used for providing support for harddrives which the motherboard can not. (Aka 200 GB drives, SATA, etc)
Weird, didn't know that. I have a cdwriter and a dvd-r on my promise ata-100 card.
GregHess
08-28-2003, 11:08 PM
Maybe I should change that to...

"some".
singularity2006
08-28-2003, 11:35 PM
ah, very cool. Thanks for the info, Greg. :thumbsup:

In anycase, I'll only use the ultra ATA card for hard drives anyway. I'll use the primary for my main hard drive and the second one for my hot swap drive, which is for hard drives only anyway. The board will use my CD ROM and zip. yah, sounds good.... =D But I do admit, I am tempted to add another hard drive or two since I can ..... this Dell I'm using it on has been working like a charm as my home multimedia server. :thumbsup:
dAfTiE
08-30-2003, 12:26 AM
I used to have 5 HDDs in my old case :)
Got REAL hot,so I had to stick like 6 80mm case fans in there to cool all the disks.
Noisy ish I tell ya. In the end I just scrapped all those disks and got 2 80 gig drives.
Of course,now that's not enough anymore,so I have to get a 200 giger or something.
Damnit,but they need to invent storage devices with infinate capacity :)

Oh,and I'll second the bit about the external IDE controllers...
Mine doesn't support anything but IDE harddrives.
Might be cuz I got it when ATA 66 was a new thing tho:surprised
singularity2006
08-31-2003, 06:09 PM
that's a whole dang lot of HD's.... what did u do with all ur old one's btw?
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