I have an Epox 8K3A+ motherboard which has two extra, red IDE sockets. How can I use them?

The manual doesn't say much. The two extra red coloured IDE sockets are labelled IDE3 and IDE4. Can I treat them as normal IDE and plug in two or four more hard disk?

I was told they were SATA but they look like normal IDE sockets to me. Do I need an adaptor?

Thanks for your time,

Mike Gatch, Ballajura, WA

First of all, I must say that whoever told you the sockets are SATA ones is most definitely incorrect, and is perhaps a bit mixed up about the difference between SATA and RAID.

SATA sockets are a completely different thing, and are similar in size to the connector for USB. The extra red sockets you have on that motherboard are another two IDE connectors, each of which can accept an additional one or two drives, and both of which can be used together to make use of the RAID capability of your motherboard.

So the answer is yes. You can install more IDE hard drives and operate them from those IDE connectors. As an extra bonus, if you are increasing drive storage in your system for some highly demanding task such as video editing,
you could install a pair of identical drives and have the configured in a ‘striped’ RAID setup for increased performance, or if you want to provide extra security for your data you could have them configured as a ‘mirrored’ RAID configuration.

If you're interested, here are other HelpStation questions that mention RAID.

Cheers,

Terry O'Shanassy