Yes you can but most likely you will have to disconnect your CD Drives. Usually motherboards only have 2 IDE ports on it for a total of 4 devices. To connect it though you have to set the OS hard drive to Primary Master. After that, the other hard drives can be Primary Slave, Secondary Master, Secondary Slave. Post back if you need help configuring it.
Or you can get a IDE PCI card and have connections for 4 more HDD http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1070704&CatId=508 bean55
Thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure if i could do that. I've been wanting to build a home server with an old Pentium 4 that i have laying around and it only had IDE no serial. So if i connect two ide cables to the motherboard i can connect four hdd and i should have a problem? or do i need to configure something in the OS? thanks.
You SHOULD NOT have a problem, just clarifying. you typed in that you should have a problem. You'll need to look on the back of each drive for a jumper. Its by the power connector. Place all the HDs in Cable Select. It'll tell you which position is cable select. The other card though that bean55 posted will let you configure the 4 hard drives in RAID which is like 1 big fast hard drive. IT WORKS REALLY WELL! For a server if you are going to be movie streaming or hdd intensive work, i suggest RAID. The performance increase is very good.
I want to use the server for movies and music so i should get the card instead. So with the card all the hdd become one big one right so in the server i will only see one?
Yes. This is the one I have and I have done it before with 2 hard drives and XP Installed. The other one should be able to do it but I'm not sure. Let us know how it goes.
Well i right now i have three hard drives a 250 a 40 and 80 gb all ide. I later i was later thinking of replacing the 80 and 40 with bigger ones i first want to build the server and see how it works. I was thinking of buying this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811164098 this case isnt big its a home theater case so it aint that big and i was thinking of putting in my home theater and it has plenty of space for additional hard drives well i can add 4 one in the internal 3.5 one in the external 3.5 and i can buy brackets to out a hard driveon the 5.25. and since none of my computers nor the server have gigabit network card i was thinking of buying this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166002 My server is a pentium 4 2.4 HT with 512 mb. do you guys think this is a good server im building if not any of you guys have any ideas?
The Ethernet card is fine but look at the specs of the case again. It only supports 1 internal 3.5" drives (hard drive) and 1 external (floppy) and it supports only a micro ATX motherboard. In my opinion, you should go with an Antec case as they are very quiet and large enough to hold all your components. For the P4 in a server, I think it should be fine depending on what you are going to do with it. I use a Celeron D 2.93GHz as my media center computer and it works fine. Just know that with the P4, you aren't going to be able to play HD DVDs or BluRays on it. I would also upgrade the RAM to 1GB but only if you see a need to after the system is built.
what i am trying to do is build a really small server with home server 2008 installed. what i meant by be able to put four hard drives is by putting a the other three hard drives well one where the floppy drive goes and two where the cd/dvd roms goes i can just by this adapter: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Drive-Adapt...goryZ167QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I have a home theater pc but i want the server to store only my movies music and pics since i only have 250 gb on my pc. I dont want a tower and well i am on a budget. so is this a good idea?
That would work but be sure to watch the temperature of the case inside the system. Also be sure that 400 watts is enough to power the system and that you have a micro atx board to put inside. http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp use that to see how big of a power supply you will need. It is also a good idea to stay 50 to 100 watts over what that gives you for room to upgrade and capacitor aging.
I used it and it said i need about 200 watts with two hard drives and about 230 with four. So you think that's good enough power? so is my idea for the server good?
I would need more specs on the power supply such as amperage per rail to tell you a definate if it will support 4 hard drives. It's worth a try, if not you could always swap out the power supply considering that its not some wierd size or type. I think your idea is fine. What processor/board is going in that, is that the P4? I think Windows server 2003 would run better on that then Server 2008. Windows 2000 works well for a server too, you could even use XP for that matter. I can't stress this enough, make sure your motherboard is a micro ATX or it will not fit in the case and the case will be useless.
It's a pentium 4 micro atx. well what if for now i only use one hard drive for now like the 250 gb with the 512 mb the home server 2008 and the 400 watt power suppl then later when i can afford to buy another two hard drives i can also buy another 512 mb of ram and a bigger power suppl. You think that would make it better?
That would also work. Just know that if you are making a RAID array, you can't add hard drives to the array after its made.
Yea but 6 hds in a case will take up some serious amperage on your 12v rail and create some serious heat and noise.
Well the max hard drives i was planning to put are just for i just wanted to make sure for future reference if i decide to build a bigger server. thanks for the replies. Well what i was planning to do it put a 250 gb on the 3.5 internal and 2 500 gb on the 5.25 using the rail adapters and 750 gb in the 3.5 external bay and i can connect all the hdd to the raid card and i can add another 512 mb of ram.
