The ideal solution would be for each IDE disk to have its own IDE controller and cable, but without fronting more costs to acquire a dual IDE controller this wouldn't be a possibility. So, I jumpered two disks as slaves, and one as master. Upon reboot, the system BIOS was configured to automatically detect the disks attached. At this point, if FreeBSD doesn't detect the disks, be sure that you have jumpered them correctly. The next consideration was how to attach them as part of the filesystem.
Less parts tends to indicate less chance of breakage.
Vinum appears to be a bit of an overkill for my needs. Setting up the CCD CCD allows me to take several identical disks and concatenate them into one logical filesystem. In order to use ccd , I need a kernel with ccd support built into it. To set up ccd , first I need to disklabel the disks. The next step is to change the disklabel type.