At 11:31 PM 10/12/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>i have 2 ide channels that have 2 hard drives and one each dvd drive and
>cd drive.
>what is the best approach for installing a tape backup drive? which would
>be a 5th ide device and what would be the best configuration?

Hi Joe,

If your system has only two IDE channels and you have have 4 drives, then
you cannot add any more drives unless you add another IDE controller. There
are many available on the market, Promise has always been a popular choice.

Note that some of the newer motherboards may have more than 2 IDE channels.
The Asus P4P800-E for example has the capability to support 10 drives
onboard. The normal 2 channels (master and slave on each), a Promise RAID
controller that supports two IDE and two SATA drives, and an onboard Intel
RAID controller that support 2 SATA drives, so if you have a newer system,
check that it only has two IDE channels before purchasing a controller.

You might also consider a backup solution that doesn't require an IDE
connection, like USB, or one that comes with its own controller. Also, if
your backup requirements are about 20Gbytes or less, you might consider a
dual layer DVD+/-RW drive. They are very cheap these days (less than $100),
the drive can replace your existing DVD drive, the media is not that
expensive anymore, and the media is probably more reliable since it is
immune to being accidentally erased by magnetic fields, and has a longer
shelf life.

Russ Poffenberger

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com