Computer Tech Question, pls answer comp experts

[Harkoliar]

okay here is the thing. i asked something related to this before but somehow i cant seem to find that thread anymore. but this is a different topic now.

i have 3 hard disk and one cdrom drive in my computer right now. i want to get a cdwriter (its cheap now) the problem is that i dont have space anymore in my computer. i dont want to get rid of any of my hard disk nor dump my cd-rom so the third option is to get a SCSI hard disk card (compatible for cdwriters ide cable) . the problem is i dont know what are the good brands and the prices. i am just looking for a cheap SCSI hard disk card. so can anyone who is familiar with this kind of stuff help? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Borvik]

I can't help you with prices - sorry. I normally used Adaptec cards but they surely aren't the cheapest. It's also a question of drivers support!
You should be careful when mixing SCSI and IDE. Always when I did that, I had problems when booting the system. I had do to a lot of tricks within the bios and the operating systems. It doesn't have to be a problem, but you should try to get some related infos about your motherboard and your operating system...

[Harkoliar]

I can't help you with prices - sorry. I normally used Adaptec cards but they surely aren't the cheapest. It's also a question of drivers support! You should be careful when mixing SCSI and IDE. Always when I did that, I had problems when booting the system. I had do to a lot of tricks within the bios and the operating systems. It doesn't have to be a problem, but you should try to get some related infos about your motherboard and your operating system...

hmmm, i have checked the adaptec scsi cards and they are EXPENSIVE indeed. im planning to buy an Asus cd-writer which cost roughly around 55 US dollars. the scsi card cost nearly 100+ US dollars. talking about expensive, heck it is more expensive than the cd-writer itself. im looking for one that cost cheaper around roughly 18 dollars (that is all i can spare) there is one computer store that is close right now, i will have to check it first, i think you have add 12 US dollars with the cd-writer than you can have the SCSI card but im not sure. they are renovating right now until the new year. sigh.

btw,
my mother board is epox with SD ram compatible
1.2 celeron ghz
32mb gforce 2 video card
3 hard disk
1 asus 50x cdrom
sound card

so if worse comes to worse, and i have no more alternatives, than i would just get rid of one of my hard drives, the smallest one. but that if i dont have anymore choices. sigh.

Why not get a Firewire or USB drive? These drives are reletively cheap, and easily portable.

[Sir Kenyth]

You can get another IDE interface card. I know they used to sell them. This starts to hog resources though. If you have to have this many devices, go SCSI. I'm assuming that the reason you have three HDD's is to be frugal with money and re-use old parts. In this case, you are kind of stuck. You have reached your system capacity on devices. Most modern PC's are frightfully short on resources with all the devices that come standard now. It may be cheaper to buy a larger HDD to replace two of the smaller ones than to buy the card and deal with the possible problems. Although pricey, external (LPT, USB, Firewire) drives or drive bays might be a good solution also.

[ 12-30-2002, 10:34 AM: Message edited by: Sir Kenyth ]

[andrewas]

Dump a HDD, free up a channel. HDDs of decent capacity have a fairly good resale value (I for one am always on the lookout for one) compared with most components. But if you have to have 3 HDDs and 2 CDs, the best option is a USB2.0 drive - plug and play and you can swap it between computers.

Problem is most PCs only have USB1.0 ports which *calculates furiosly* only let you burn at 4X, probably not reliable above 2X. Firewire is faster of course, but rarer on PCs, although this will change since integrated Firwire is becoming more common.

The problem with SCSI is it comes in loads of types, so unless you plan ahead your lucky to end up with the right kind of card. SCSI cards come from as little as £20, but Wide Ultra2 SCSI starts at about £150. Wide Ultra2 is fairly standard I think. But look up what type the CD-R needs, dont rely on this guess.

[Harkoliar]

You can get another IDE interface card. I know they used to sell them. This starts to hog resources though. If you have to have this many devices, go SCSI. I'm assuming that the reason you have three HDD's is to be frugal with money and re-use old parts. In this case, you are kind of stuck. You have reached your system capacity on devices. Most modern PC's are frightfully short on resources with all the devices that come standard now. It may be cheaper to buy a larger HDD to replace two of the smaller ones than to buy the card and deal with the possible problems. Although pricey, external (LPT, USB, Firewire) drives or drive bays might be a good solution also.

hmmm, buying new hard drives is not an alternative for me right now. im kinda tight on money and hopefully i will look into that ide controller card (hopefully it wont take too much of my resource and not that expensive either) i have 192 mb ram so i think that would be sufficient. thanks for the advice! [img]smile.gif[/img]

if not, i guess its time so set aside the old maxtor hard disk (it only has 6.4 gigs). i still have a 20gig and a 30 gig for a drive space, but you are right, im frugal with money and like to use old parts (heck that 6.4 gigs hard disk was pretty expensive years ago [img]smile.gif[/img] )

[/)eathKiller]

your best bet is probably an external CD writer, those are handy and can work with a number of machines long after your old tower is gone ^_^

[Harkoliar]

Dump a HDD, free up a channel. HDDs of decent capacity have a fairly good resale value (I for one am always on the lookout for one) compared with most components. But if you have to have 3 HDDs and 2 CDs, the best option is a USB2.0 drive - plug and play and you can swap it between computers. Problem is most PCs only have USB1.0 ports which *calculates furiosly* only let you burn at 4X, probably not reliable above 2X. Firewire is faster of course, but rarer on PCs, although this will change since integrated Firwire is becoming more common. The problem with SCSI is it comes in loads of types, so unless you plan ahead your lucky to end up with the right kind of card. SCSI cards come from as little as £20, but Wide Ultra2 SCSI starts at about £150. Wide Ultra2 is fairly standard I think. But look up what type the CD-R needs, dont rely on this guess.

since nearly all of your opinions say that having a SCSI card will just make my life miserable (regarding incompatability) i guess its time for it to be placed aside (for future emergency use [img]smile.gif[/img] )

thanks for all your opinions guys !

btw, more comments are welcome!

[Harkoliar]

your best bet is probably an external CD writer, those are handy and can work with a number of machines long after your old tower is gone ^_^

i agree with that. but the external would need me to get a usb2 controller since my motherboard only has usb1. besides external is twice expensive than the internal. [img]smile.gif[/img] im looking also at money here [img]smile.gif[/img]