Multiple hard drives in caddies

[Val d'Isere]

For some years, on my everyday computer at home I've been using three ATA/IDE hard drives in separate caddies, physically changing drives to suit various requirements. Motherboard is Elite Group K8M800-M2.

I now need to renew that computer, because the current one is kaput.

I see that computers are now sold with "SATA" hard drives and cables, whatever that means.

To save the expense of buying a bunch of SATA hard drives, I want to continue using my ATA/IDE hard drives and caddies. However, I guess they wouldn't be compatible with a SATA computer. Low cost is the big necessity.

Can anyone recommend a supplier of computers and their model names, that would still be compatible with my ATA/IDE hard drives and caddies, please. I suspect that there may be some cheap "obsolete" but unused stock lying around now that SATA is the "in" thing.

I'm a PC novice and would greatly appreciate simple terminology.

Thanks.

[Background Noise]

Are these internal or external drives? Do you need to boot up from each drive separately? Do they use different operating systems?

I'm sure you can use them as additional drives on a sata machine. If not, you can get external caddies for each and use them one at a time, or all together through a USB hub, plugged into the new machine.

[Saab Dastard]

Make sure that any computer you get supports both SATA and IDE.

SD

[Pontius Navigator]

SATA Hard Drive Buying Guide: The Differences between ATA, PATA, and SCSI Storage Devices

If you google for the differences between SATA, PATA, ATA it becomes clearer

[Keef]

Are the caddies connected to a USB socket, or plugged into the main machine?

If they're USB, carry on as before. If they're IDE, you need a new machine with IDE capability. Most that I've seen still have it.

[Mac the Knife]

I've been using hard drives in caddies as you have to a long time. Only nuisance with PATA is the need to shut down and reboot when changing.

If your new mobo doesn't have PATA channels or you're already using them for CD/DVDs then you can get a slot-in PCI card that will give you at least 2 master/slave channels.

Lots of 'em around, just google for 'em

[Val d'Isere]

Thanks for all the information so far.

To answer the questions -----

These are internal drives, although they obviously sit in caddies, which themselves just slide into the caddy holder via the front of the machine. The caddy holder is screwed into the top free space in the computer case and connected to the internal cables for IDE and power (not a USB connection).

I need to shut down Windows to change drives, but I don't need to switch the wall socket off (i.e. mains electricity can remain on). Each drive has different versions of Windows installed, depending upon the other software on that drive, and all will boot up the PC from scratch.

I only have one caddy holder in the PC, so I only use one hard drive at a time, on its own (no master, slave complication).

[Saab Dastard]

It sounds as if you could probably accomplish what you need with one or more fixed internal disks configured to allow you to boot into whichever OS / configuration you require.

This would obviously obviate the necessity to stick with IDE / PATA drives, although perhaps somewhat trickier to configure than your current arrangement.

Do bear in mind that while you would be able to re-use the existing disks/caddy/holder in a new PC (that supports IDE), you would still have to completely re-install the OS on each and every disk to work with the new PC, together with all the applications and data on it.

SD

[Val d'Isere]

The idea of one drive and separate OS is a good one, although I'm a bit reluctant as a PC novice. However, a useful advantage of physically separate drives is isolation of viruses and irretrevable (by me, anyway) crashes.



And yes, I'm not looking forward to reinstalling everything on three hard drives.

That raises an interesting point. Some time ago, I was disappointed to find that you even need to reinstall everything when you move to an identical computer in every respect --- same motherboard, RAM, graphics card etc. The hard drive refuses to transfer over, even though it is sitting in an identical computer. No doubt there's some ROM (?), or whatever, that is different, but I'm just guessing.

[Shunter]

Some time ago, I was disappointed to find that you even need to reinstall everything when you move to an identical computer in every respect

Not true. You simply need to prepare the OS for the move. Most issues arise from storage driver problems and can be dealt with like this. Some years ago I built an XP image for a 5000+ workstation environment. There were over 20 different types of machine, of varying brands. The image came up clean on every single one of them.

The replacement for caddies in this day and age is virtualisation and lots of RAM. Get yourself a copy of VMware Server (free) and use Ghost or qemu-img to convert your existing disks to virtual disks. Tada... all done! There's also Microsoft's Virtual Server, but it's truly awful and best avoided IMHO.

[Saab Dastard]

Shunter, using VMs is a very good idea - wish I'd thought to suggest it! An added benefit is that you can run multiple VMs simultaneously, and they can interact with each other.

The only caveat is that it does require a beefy PC to run them.

Val d'Isere -

Some time ago, I was disappointed to find that you even need to reinstall everything when you move to an identical computer in every respect --- same motherboard, RAM, graphics card etc. The hard drive refuses to transfer over, even though it is sitting in an identical computer. No doubt there's some ROM (?), or whatever, that is different, but I'm just guessing.

It is possible that your drive caddy is in some way slightly different to a standard IDE setup, but I have never, ever had a problem moving an IDE disk from one PC to an identical PC. It just works!

SD

[green granite]

I ran an IDE drive as well as a SATA in my beast for a while but got quite a few strange write failure messages from windows and it would disappear from the hard drive management screen as well so I disconnected it and the messages disappeared so it was the ide drive causing it. You don't of course have to use the SATA drive the new M/C comes with, you could just disconnect it and use the ide set up instead.

[Val d'Isere]

Great info, you guys.

I've been looking a PC specifications, based upon the tips given here.

As advised, there seems to be provision of an IDE connection inside SATA machines. I think I'd disconnect the SATA drive to ensure no problems with my ATA caddied drives. SATA speeds are irrelevant for what I do on the PC.

Maybe a silly question, but I'll repeat that I'm just a computer novice ---What the PC suppliers don't make clear is whether the IDE connection is taken up by an existing device in their particular machine. Unhelpful (and costly) advice lines and undertrained staff aren't providing answers. Is this a possible problem, or can the IDE slot only ever be occupied by an ATA hard drive? I'd be miffed to receive a new PC only to find that the IDE cable was already connected to something vital.

[Saab Dastard]

Most mobos with IDE support have 2 IDE channels - Primary and Secondary.

Each channel can support two devices, assuming that there is a) sufficient space and mounting locations b) power connectors (you can buy a splitter to provide additional) and c) a 2-device IDE cable (i.e. 3 connectors - mobo, master, slave). again, you can buy these if required.

IDE suports both hard disks and CD / DVD drives. Best not to mix them on same channel if possible for performance.

HDs on Primary, CD etc. on Secondary.

SD