300GB Ultra ATA/133 HD

Just bought a Maxtor 300GB Ultra ATA/133 HD.

Reading my mobo manual that says the following:

"PCI IDE controller supports PCI bus mastering PIO modes 0~4, and UDMA 33/66/100"

Its an ATX P4ITA mobo.

What are my options to take advantage of Ultra ATA/133?

Ok, that was my first question.

My second question is about the limit of storage drives in one computer. I already have two 40 gb hard drives, one CDRW and one DVD ROM drive. Is there any way to add this 3rd hard drive without having to remove any existing ones. I know my best bet was to get an external firewire or USB based HD. But its too late for that. I couldn't resist the great price offer on this internal hd and the fact that I have already opened the box.

Thanks in advance.

Get a Promise PCI ATA133 card. It would be an advantage in two ways, the ATA133 and make possible no limit to harddrive size. Plus it comes with two IDE controllers and its own BIOS.

Like the one below:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0

Your drive will run at ATA100 on that board. Speed-wise it will be of little consequence. The only data that will actually hit that sort of speed is burst data (data which needs no multiplexed address information accompanying it) from the drive's cache. Sustained data transfer will be pretty much the same.

That said, if you really do want all drives in the system, getting an ATA133 PCI interface card would sort it out, and give you the full potential of the drive.

Alternatively, you could get an external USB/Firewire enclosure and put one of the 40G drives in it, or replace the two optical drives with a DVD writer.

Sorry photolady, you already posted while I was multi-tasking... :)

And I type fast.......:D

Thanks a bunch for your prompt replies...

I have one last question...

My current configuration is as follows (or thats the way I understand it anyways)

Primary master: boot drive
Primary Slave: 2nd HD
Secondary master: DVD ROM
Secondary Slave: CDRW

Now with this PCI ATA card, how does it actually work?

I see you mentioned that the card has its own BIOS. Does it mean that the MOBO BIOS won't see the new drives mounted on the card? Could the new drive be used as a boot drive even when plugged into the card?

Thanks again.

Yes, you can use it for your boot drive. The motherboards BIOS is separate, and won't show the hdd but will show the card.

First thing to do is install the card and it's bios, then connect your drive.

photolady,

can I have a master and a slave drive in each of the two ports on the PCI ATA card or does it work differently than the ports on the mobo?

Identical.
My basic setup for you.

IDE
Primary ide cdrom-Master and at times a hdd is the slave[backup]
Secondary ide, dvd-rw- Master and the slave is a cdrw

ATA
Primary 2hdds, primary and slave
Secondary 2hdds, Primary and slave


My C: drive is on the ata card.