Limit of CD Drives in XP

**jeffreymb** · May 18th, 2006, 12:52 PM

I am researching building a CD duplication system.
What I want to know what the limitations is in XP or the hardware as far as how many CD burners I can have on one system.

I got an indication from somewhere once that it was possible to have 99! I would only need to have 16.

Another limitation may be the data transfer bandwidth of the controller when I am burning 16 Cd's at the same time. I don't know what would be the best way to go as far as interface. IDE drives are easy to come by, I couldn't find the first SCSI drive and I'm not to familiar with SATA.

Any comments would be appreciated.

PS Whenever I bring this issue up someone always recommends a conventional CD duplicator. I am aware of this machines and in fact own one, but I have a slightly special application that they don't suite the bill quite right.

**jeffreymb** · May 18th, 2006, 02:30 PM

Are you saying then that even if I put in a couple PCI IDE controllers that it will only recognize 4 of them? That isn't what I have understood.

Thanks for the post.

**stroyal** · May 18th, 2006, 04:37 PM

I thought you could have drives up to the letter Z. I have 6 IDE drives in my wifes computer, that work fine with an extra PCI controler.
Edit;
I found these, I don't know if it will help.
http://www.sharkyforums.com/archive/.../t-201886.html

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=61821

**VHockey86** · May 18th, 2006, 04:41 PM

as strange as it seems, im pretty sure that windows is limited to 26 block devices
because of the letters for partitions.

--edit--
apparently that was only a problem in older NT days.

So no worries =).

**bfcx** · May 18th, 2006, 04:43 PM

There is really no limit. If you had IDE cards you could put 4 on each one, so if you need 16 get 4 cards and 16 drives and your set. Power consumption might be a factor, your powersuply might not be able to power all of them.

Nero can burn to as many burners as you have at the same time, which is perty nice.

Also there are duplicating towers that dont reqire a computer, just stick in a cd and the rest blank and hit copy.

**jeffreymb** · May 18th, 2006, 05:09 PM

Stroyal, with your 6 IDE drives, are they hard drives or are some of them CD burners. If they are cd burners, have you had any sucess burning to more that one at a time?

Also I am concerned about the bandwith constraints on IDE as well as the rest of the system when I am burning to 16 drives at the same time.

**TheBigCarp321** · May 18th, 2006, 05:12 PM

Get some IDE controllers and you'll be fine

As for yer worry, just burn the disks, dont do anything else. I wouldn't think you could even move the mouse wth 16 at a time lol.

**stroyal** · May 18th, 2006, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by jeffreymb

Stroyal, with your 6 IDE drives, are they hard drives or are some of them CD burners. If they are cd burners, have you had any sucess burning to more that one at a time?

Also I am concerned about the bandwith constraints on IDE as well as the rest of the system when I am burning to 16 drives at the same time.

Just 1 burner. 2 HDs, 1 zip, 1 DVD ROM, and a 1 CD ROM

**Jarhed7276** · May 18th, 2006, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by jeffreymb

Also I am concerned about the bandwith constraints on IDE as well as the rest of the system when I am burning to 16 drives at the same time.

I would think that 16 burners connected to 4 PCI controllers all running at the same time would saturate the PCI bus.

I'll second Steve and say look into SCSI.

**dzee** · May 18th, 2006, 06:59 PM

if you used all ide drives i think the recording would be incredibly slow due to the bandwidth constraints.

**Micky758** · May 18th, 2006, 08:42 PM

If you use a USB 2.0 to IDE bridge (like the one used in external drives) you could have up to 127 cd-burners or 63 using firewire. If you have SATA on your mobo you could buy SATA to IDE adpators so another 8 there

So with the USB, firewire, sata and PCI cards you can have 214 CD-burners

better re-mortgage your house to pay for the electricity

**evereddie** · May 18th, 2006, 10:22 PM

I have built several of these. You don't even need a computer. Search on 'duplicator hardware', and 'Duplicator controller'. Here is one valuable link to get you going.
http://www.caloptic.com/ Click on cd/dvd controllers.

**jeffreymb** · May 19th, 2006, 08:12 AM

I talked to Nero sales. They said that it shouldn't be a problem to have 16 or more drives on a system and bur to them all the same data at the same time.

They did say that they recommended SATA.

As far as being able to have 214 CD Burners on as system. Aren't you limited in XP to only 26 drive letters? I couln't find any documentation on the subject in XP help.

**DanU** · May 19th, 2006, 12:35 PM

Windows 2000/XP supports mount points, similar to the way unix works. No need to use ANY drive letters at all!

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524