# Two drives



## Boxmaker (Mar 7, 2010)

I am new to Open Source.  To prove it, I am confused about hard drives.  I see so many references to multiple hard drives, but manufacturers websites only speak of external hard drives as either storage or back-up devices.  All the Open Source information I have read makes me think that an external hard drive in a USB can have a bootable OS on it.  Can someone enlighten me?


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## graudeejs (Mar 7, 2010)

Yes, you can boot from external HDD, *IF* your bios supports booting from usb.
Same applies to Flash (unless it's U3 flash, which didn't work for me)


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## fbsd1 (Mar 8, 2010)

Desktop PC can have multiple hard drives cabled to the motherboard. 4 max if not having cd/dvd drive.


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## trev (Mar 8, 2010)

fbsd1 said:
			
		

> 4 max if not having cd/dvd drive.



Most motherboards that I've looked at recently allow from 4 to 8 internal SATA drives plus 2 IDE internal drives, whether they be hard disk or optical drives. Not sure whence you got your limit of just 4.


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## Beastie (Mar 8, 2010)

^ "recently" is your keyword here.
Back in the days of the (P)ATA ( sounds epic  ), computers usually only had two controllers/cables for optical/hard disks, with a master and a slave for each, i.e. 4 disks.


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## graudeejs (Mar 8, 2010)

he he he, I can stick (in my new server [which is desktop pc]):
6x SATA300 HDD's
2x SATA600 HDD's
2x IDE HDD's

10x USB HDD's
2x ESATA HDD's

I think that's all (but I might be missing some)
So totally I can stick: 22 HDD's


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