Hello,

I have a server right now, completely full with drives (added custom brackets... FULL) with no more power cables / wattage avalible to support another drive. I would like to add another, would it be ok if I made a little external case, hooked the ide cable up to my ide card in pc A, and took a spare cable from pc B's psu and used it to run the drive? I know it's kind of wierd, just wondering if I can save some money not having to buy a new PSU, thanks.

I suppose you could, but I wouldn't want to think what could happen to your data on that drive if say computer B crashes and reboots while computer A is writting to that drive. There are external enclusures (USB/Firewire/SATA) that can hold up to 8 drives with their own power supplies. They are kind of spendy though. How 'bout a single disc USB/Firewire enclosure. You can usually get them pretty cheap.

Michael J

I think that you are saying your 2nd box would just have a PSU and a drive in it - no MOBO.

So it would in fact be a bit like the expansion box Michael referred to, though I think they actually have a circuit board in to handle the IDE.

I assume your getting extra IDE channels from PCI cards.

There should be no theoretical problem with what you propose, though there is a limit to the length of an IDE cable which could be a problem.

If the project works, why not use a full size case (probably cheaper than custom anyway) and move several drives across to improve cooling in the main box?

Well, I was acutally thinking about doing it with a pc connected to a mobo to power the new drive, but come to think of it, I have an empty case and an old AT power supply that would work great. Just cross the green and black wires... and go. GREAT IDEA!! :) THANK YOU.

Just how many drives are you using in that thing? I built myself a file server a while back using this case which has 6 external 5-1/4 bays. I have one internal drive for the OS. The 6 external drive bays are used for (1) DVD, (1) Hard Drive in removable drawer for local backups, and (4) Hard drives in drawers in a RAID-5.

Michael J

Well for now, just one lol, but as I add / need more room, I will be modding the inside, to make about 10 drives or so be able to fit (and multiple power supplies) hah, screw buying a few 500 gb drives.