Hi all,
I have an old Pentium 4 machine (circa 2002) with 512MB RAM, an old Intel 850MVL socket 478 motherboard, and Windows XP.
I would like to use it to house my data backups, and to be able to fill it with 5 or 6 3-TeraByte internal hard drives, and have purchased a SYBA Sata Card that has 4 SATA connectors.
Here's my dilemma:
I've learned that old BIOS's don't support over 2TB drives, and I know the old BIOS cannot be upgraded. I am pondering whether to:
1.) try and use the old machine and MULTIPLE SYBA PCI Sata Controller cards to connect 3 TB drives - but am not sure if I am asking for trouble to go this route - both in terms of hacking the old bios to be able to support 3TB drives (if this even can be done) - or using MULTIPLE SYBA PCI Sata cards might be tricky in terms of getting consistent drive labels for each drive
2.) just settle for 2TB drives, because trying to get the old machine to play well with 3TB drives is more trouble than it's worth, and the old machine with XP should easily support the 2TB drives.
3.) just bite the bullet, and upgrade the processor / motherboard / RAM in the old machine NOW to avoid headaches
4.) decide what file format system to use - because I'd like to be able to easily take out the internal drives and put in an external doc to txfer files to other computers at times
Sorry for such a long, detailed questions. I'm hoping others considering using an old PC to house the new large capacity hard drives may also learn something from a discussion about the tradeoffs and alternatives.
Regards,
Joe