How can I detect how many hard drive bays I have?

August 31, 2005 2:59 PM

How can I detect how many hard drive bays I have?

Long story short--there's a frackin' good deal on a nice, high quality hard drive that I'm looking at. Trouble is--I honestly don't remember how many bays I have. Is there an easy way to detect the number short of opening up my case? Preferably an answer would be good before the end of today.

posted by Lockeownzj00 to technology (15 comments total)

I don't think there's really any way to detect how many you have. If you can find the technical specifications of the case in question on the web, though, that'll tell you.

Do you have more than one HD in the machine right now? Most cases will have the ability to mount at least two.
posted by selfnoise at 3:04 PM on August 31, 2005

I have 2 in the machine right now. I was thinking that there would be a program that was able to detect the hardware--a la detecting what kind of motherboard you have. no luck?
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 3:05 PM on August 31, 2005

Look at the manual
Call the manufacturer

Just curious why you dont want to open up the case
posted by MrMulan at 3:06 PM on August 31, 2005

Well, no. I mean, most cases are just dumb metal. You should be able to figure out how many SATA / IDE ports on your mobo you have, but in terms of bays in the case... I really can't think of any way of doing that.
posted by selfnoise at 3:07 PM on August 31, 2005

Some cases make it pretty clear where the drive bays are, but I'm presuming you don't have one of those.

If you know what kind of computer/case you've got, you could probably look it up on Google. (Depending on the case, though, it might be quicker to just open it up.)

On preview: I'm pretty sure there's no software way to do it. One of my computers, for example, has two free spaces on the IDE cables, but nowhere to mount another drive inside the case, and I can't see how software could identify that particular situation. (Note that I'm talking about consumer-grade PCs--the situation might be different for servers, etc.)
posted by box at 3:12 PM on August 31, 2005

If you don't have a dedicated 3.5" bay spare you can get an adaptor for a few quid that will let you mount a hard drive in a 5.25" bay.

In my experience, most cases will take at least 2 hard drives, so if you only have one physical hard drive, chances are you can fit another one in.

Also, aren't you going to have to open up the case anyway to put the new drive in?
posted by gaby at 3:18 PM on August 31, 2005

Typical motherboards have two IDE channels (I guess SATA is becoming more mainstream...eh...) that can each have two devices, be they hard drives or CD-ROMs. If you're using Windows, going to Device Manager, then looking under the IDE Adapter item will list what's connected to the Primary and Secondary controllers. Alternatively, you can just use common sense and count your CD-ROMs/DVD-R drives, and your harddrives. If you have four, then you need a new IDE controller, which gives you an additional four spots.

This has nothing to do with the physical space inside your computer, since the software has no idea about this. The only way to know is to open up your computer case.
posted by odinsdream at 3:45 PM on August 31, 2005

See if you've got IDE or SATA hard drives. If it's IDE, you almost definitely have the ability to use four drives. This is hard drives AND cd/dvd drives and possibly anything weird like any old zip drive you have. So if you have 2 IDE hard drives and 1 DVD-ROM drive you can put in one more IDE hard drive.

If you have SATA hard drives, your motherboard probably only has two SATA connections being used by your current drives. You could still probably connect another IDE hard drive, since to my knowledge motherboards with SATA generally still support four IDE devices.

If you're full up you should be able to buy an additional SATA or IDE controller. If the hard drive you're looking at is SATA and you only have IDE on your motherboard, you'll have to buy a SATA controller.

It's pretty unlikely you have SCSI, but if you do I don't really know much about it...

This just covers the number of devices supported by your controllers - the "bay" where you physically put the drive isn't so important. You could probably get away with taping the thing to the floor of the case - my computer isn't even in a case right now, I've just got the motherboard in the desk and the drives laying on the floor.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:05 PM on August 31, 2005

You either have to look inside, or find the specs for your case on the web.

You can't really assume anything from external appearances. I have a small MicroATX case (Antec Aria) that has extra room on the inside to cram in extra drives, although you'd never think so from looking at it.
posted by bruceyeah at 6:27 PM on August 31, 2005

If you're talking about the physical bay, and if you've got a floppy drive, that's a 3.5" bay right there.

I mean, you don't actually use the floppy drive, do you?
posted by pompomtom at 7:19 PM on August 31, 2005

You could buy an external case for the hard drive for around $30-$40.
posted by malp at 7:34 PM on August 31, 2005

just open the case and you will figure it out
posted by flyby22 at 7:42 PM on August 31, 2005

I ended up using AIDA32 to detect my current drive statuses (and an excuse to redownload the fantastic program), then opened it up--part of the reason I didn't want to is because it's an absolutely abhorrent Dell Case that tries to allow for this "friendly" "push these two buttons in to release" method, but it sucks.

All the bays were filled--but if the floppy method would work, I would seriously consider that. Would it? Would it only work with certain drives?
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 9:28 PM on August 31, 2005

Lockeownzj00, are you sure you understand what's going on here? What are the bays filled with? Do you have one harddrive and three disc drives? Do you have two harddrives and two disc drives? I'm not sure why you needed to download a third-party program to discover what you have in your case.

I don't mean to sound rude, but this is just a matter of physical objects fitting into physical spaces. There are physical ribbon cables inside the computer. If you have one that isn't currently attached to something, and it fits into a harddrive, you can add that harddrive to your system.

To actually make it look nice inside, and be able to close your case, you need to stow that new harddrive in a physical location. You can do this with adapter rails that let you fit a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" bay, or you can just put it right where a floppy goes by first pulling the floppy out. Floppies fit in the same 3.5" space that harddrives do. Or, of course, by putting it into an already-empty 3.5" space. This should be painfully obvious from poking around inside your case. Cases are physically different, of course, so you're on your own in this regard.
posted by odinsdream at 10:08 PM on August 31, 2005

Open the box!
posted by Joeforking at 1:49 AM on September 1, 2005