Buying advice: IDE controller card for my Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7

[Slugger]

I am building my first hackintosh. I've got it all built using parts exclusively from TonyMac's CustoMac Pro buyer's guide.

I'm about to install Yosemite but I've decided I'd also like to use an old IDE hard-drive and an old IDE optical drive for additional storage. (These will be in addition to the SSD hard drive where I will install OSX). Both old drives are IDE so I hope to add an IDE controller card to my Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 motherboard to support them.


1) Does anyone have an IDE controller card they are certain will work on Hackintosh & Yosemite? If not what should I look for? Any particular brand or specs to try first?

2) If I get an IDE controller card that works will most IDE optical drives work on Hackintosh/Yosemite? Mine is a Lite-On DVDRW SHW-1635S

3) Will most IDE hard drives work? Mine is a Seagate Baracuda...

4) Is this even a good idea? Should I just forget about adding IDE drives?

 

[nobodynose]

I am building my first hackintosh. I've got it all built using parts exclusively from TonyMac's CustoMac Pro buyer's guide.

I'm about to install Yosemite but I've decided I'd also like to use an old IDE hard-drive and an old IDE optical drive for additional storage. (These will be in addition to the SSD hard drive where I will install OSX). Both old drives are IDE so I hope to add an IDE controller card to my Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 motherboard to support them.


1) Does anyone have an IDE controller card they are certain will work on Hackintosh & Yosemite? If not what should I look for? Any particular brand or specs to try first?

2) If I get an IDE controller card that works will most IDE optical drives work on Hackintosh/Yosemite? Mine is a Lite-On DVDRW SHW-1635S

3) Will most IDE hard drives work? Mine is a Seagate Baracuda...

4) Is this even a good idea? Should I just forget about adding IDE drives?

I would forget this crazy scheme and get a new SATA optical (about $20 IF YOU EVEN NEED ONE) and a new SATA drive (1TB drives start around $60 now). As you said yourself, those drives are old...that means they're much nearer to approaching their MTBF than a new drive. Besides, your chances of finding a compatible IDE controller today are not so good.

 

[YWO]

Like nobodynose, I'd suggest not worrying about trying to get your IDE drives working in your new build. I have some old IDE drives and had been thinking about reusing them, but after searching around for ways to do that, came to the conclusion that it simply wasn't worth the time and effort. I transferred my data using a universal drive adaptor (IDE/SATA/USB) and have never looked back. Apart from the age factor that nobodynose mentioned, any new drives are probably going to be faster than your old hard drives anyway (e.g., faster seek, larger cache, let alone moving to SSDs), so you'd just be introducing a bottleneck into your new system.