You can do that.

Compact Flash cards with ide adapters are also good. This lets you pop the drive into your main system to transfer files.

or, get a pci sata card like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201629463559

I dropped in a spare 320gb sata drive and it worked perfectly. I had to make several 32gb partitions, because fat32 is what it is. If i need more space I jsut add a new partition. With windows 2000 I could use the whole thing as one drive.

For a DOS machine, CF or MicroSD is excellent. Depending on the logic the adapter uses, it might be problematic for an OS which has a swap file.

Anyway I am using too a K6-2+ fast machine lately and it seems that with any great video cards the barrier of 2500 points in 3dmark2000 is not easily surpassed. The Radeon is obviously heavily cpu limited and even with T&L enabled from 640x480 to 1024x768 the numbers are the same... 🤣.
But at least I can benefit a better 2D quality and official Win ME whql drivers. In games I would not be surprised if an older one get even better results. 😉

What about storage for windows 98/ME?

IDE-SATA converters. Use modern SATA drives/SSDs as you prefer.

Ok. CompactFlash vs SD? Which is better for retro PC storage?

I use compact flash. The cards are just as cheap as SD, the adapters are even cheaper, and they always seem to work. Plus they are SUPPOSED to have built in wear leveling.

downside of CF? If you want to move them to a new pc, you need an usb adapter, where a lot of computers usually have SD card ports standard.

But USB to CF readers are cheap, correct?

Seems like the only part of this build I can't find is the K6-III+ CPU. There are plenty of K6-IIIs for sale, but no III+ models. Maybe I'll start with Socket A instead.

there are several 3+'s @ 450mhz on ebay for like $20

Oh! I didn't see! Gonna get one asap!

Power supply for an SS7 board? Will any ATX PSU work?

Yes

Great! How about a CPU cooler? Ebay?

Alright. I am all set for my SS7 build, except for the sound card. Going with ISA for sure, but I am not sure which card setup to use. Here are my options:
SoundBlaster AWE32 + Dreamblaster X1
Soundblaster 16 + Ultrasound ACE and/or Dreamblaster X1
Ultrasound MAX
Yamaha Audician 32 Plus + Ultrasound ACE
Are there any that you guys would suggest from that era? I have two 16-bit ISA slots on my board. I need a midi/game port for use with external modules (CM-64, SC88 pro, MU2000EX)

If you're limited to 2x ISA slots, I recommend the Yamaha, a GUS (doesn't have to be an ACE), and a Dreamblaster board. Should cover all your bases, particularly for DOS software. If you have clearance problems with the daughterboard, you can cable to Dreamblaster into the Waveblaster header.

I think this is somewhat related to the topic... apologies if it isn't (I haven't read every page).

It seems funny to me that early on (10-15 years ago) I attempted to build one retro PC using some old parts (Quantum Bigfoot drive, P200MMX, Rendition verite 1000) that were my brother's and I had a terrible time getting the system working right... but I did use it for some 9x and DOS gaming. At some point later on (2005 probably) I came into possession of an FIC PA-2013 2.0 SS7 motherboard and a 500Mhz K6-2. I thought this would be more flexible and more suitable for a Windows 98\DOS game system and I set it up as such. I loved the fact that the jumpers were easy to access if a game needed the CPU to be slower (though I admittedly never bothered changing them for this purpose), and the system proved to be quite stable and useful for many years.

Eventually that system contained my old Verite 1000, a Voodoo 2 12MB SLI setup, a Sound Blaster CT2230, 128MB of SDRAM, two ~13GB Quantum Fireball hard drives and a DVD-ROM. Considering the limited amount of research and resources (and how i never actually purchased anything for a retro rig at this point), this was a pretty awesome system.

Fast forward to today and I've got old PC hardware coming out my ears and so many possible configurations that could be built and no time to focus on a single one. After disassembling my old K6 system and attempting a few other other 9x\DOS builds, I've been reading more and more lately about how SS7 systems are the most flexible, able to be scaled down to 386 speeds or up to near Pentium III speeds. I'm actually thinking of going back to that old FIC board now... it just seems silly that I had such a well rounded system when I had no resources, and now that I have motherboards coming out my ears I'll likely be falling back to that same one (at least the motherboard and CPU).

In the end, I just like building them and playing a game here and there... so it doesn't matter that much, and no system will ever be perfect for everything.

VIA Ezra (and perhaps Nehemiah) systems are supposed to be even more flexible, but they're less straightforward to build.

Does the CT1920 Goldfinch card have the hanging note bug? I was looking at it for EMU8000 midi sound, but I noticed it doesn't have a Game/midi port. What cards have:
Waveblaster header
Game/midi port
Goldfinch header
No hanging note bug

CF cards are actually IDE SSDs but were originally intended for cameras and that sort but they found their way onto a lot of other devices including routers. They work in much the same way as modern SSDs except that they do not have garbage collection and other modern features. The only catch is that the vast majority of adapters cripple performance to ata 33 specs and some boards/controllers don't always play nice.