Old IDE HDD's what do you do with them?

[Napolean_D]

After watercooling my new rig and using a single 250Gb SATA drive, i have no need (or space) for my old IDE HDD's.

However as its my main rig, i want to keep it mainly for games and remove MP3's, movies etc from my new SATA drive.

I have a spare EPIA mITX rig i have just put together in an old case (from a P166MMX) and use an old 200Watt PSU to power it, i was thinking of using it purely for storage and can add my 4 old IDE HDD's to it (using a PCI card).

Roughly how much power will 4 HDD's use up? Will my 200W PSU be up to it? Only other things would be EPIA 800, CD drive and a couple of 80mm fans.

What would be a good/cheap replacement PSU (preferably *silent*)?

[Slamdog]

i would just stick in the two biggest drives..

[RDL]

That PSU should be fine. What size are the drives?

[funnelhead]

Since epia's are very low power, that size psu will be fine. I run a 600mhz p3 with 3 hd's on a 200W psu as a torrenting box, and its been fine for a year now...

HD's only really use alot of power on startup - around 2.5 amps across the 5v and 12v rails....(and all at the same time , remember). After this they'll be using 1 - 1.5 A ish depending on idle / RW ....

Personally the thing to worry about is noise and cooling.... Four old Hd's can make a bit of a racket and if crammed together, may overheat. I have mine wrapped in rubber, stacked on foam with a 120mm fan blowing through them...that takes away the whining and scratching.

Since performance isnt crucial, you could try setting the drives to acoustic mode... try looking at the manufacturers website for the tool to do it..


hope my random thoughts help some...

f

[aidanjt]

Hard drives only use about 8 Watts each.

[turgid]

get some ice boxes, externally drive enclosures. Then hook em up to a usb hub, they have external power. They don't need drivers and are recognised by linux/ms.

[Napolean_D]

Thanks for confirmation, i thought 200W would be ok.

The plan is.......
I removed a 4 drive cage from my game rig to make room for the watercooling rad. It's one of them screwless/plastic slides type jobbies. I'm going to install it inside a midi tower case that used to house a P166MMX, and has been modded to fit the EPIA 800.
I was thinking of strapping two 80mm fans at 7v to the drive cage to provide some airflow, although the case itself will only have the PSU fan exhausting air (do you think it will be enough?) I will monitor temps with MBM software.

The drives are 2x120Gb seagate 7200.8....i think, a maxtor 80Gb and a samsung 40Gb.
The samsung will only be added when required as i remember it being noisy.

I already have one drive in an icy-box which i use with my laptop, dont want to buy any more, as i have enough 'bits' here to make my own storage box "Projecet Beige-Box"