1 cdrw, 1 cd, 1 hd, 2 ide channels: which 2 drives on 1 channel?

[dpopiz]

I have 1 cd-rw, 1 cd-rom, and 1 hd, and I have the usual 2 ide channels on my mobo: which 2 drives should I put on 1 channel?

 

[MichaelD]

IDE 1 HD Master/DVD or CD Rom Slave
IDE2 CDRW Master

You want to keep the burner on it's own channel. You'll either be burning CD to CD or HD to CD, right? The burner will always be on it's own channel, regardless. Depending on what case you have, cable length may become an issue. I had to move my HD from the lower cage (that has the fan in it) in my Antec 1040 to the upper cage w/the floppy in order for the cable to reach from the mobo-->DVD rom (middle/slave connector)-->HD (upper/master) connector.

 

[beatle]

I vote for the HD as primary master, DVD as secondary master, and CDRW as secondary slave. This flies in the face of MichaelD's advice, but I figure it this way - your cdrw likely has burnproof, no? If so, you don't have to worry much about xfer rates going down to levels that could ruin a burn. I would prefer to have fast access to installing things from my DVD drive. This also eliminates possible cable length problems. I'm running this setup in my comp with no problems, FWIW.

 

[timu]

according to pcworld you should connect your optical drives to one IDE channel (cdrw master and cd rom slave), harddrive to a single IDE channel. because optical drives slow down the harddrives.

 

[Bovinicus]

If you like to make copies directly from CD to CD-R, then put the CD-ROM as the slave on the same channel as the HDD and the CD-RW drive on the secondary channel. I ran into some problems the other way. If you don't make any on the fly copies, then it is probably better to leave the HDD on it's own channel and make the CD-RW drive the master on the other channel.

Theoretically, the CD-ROM will degrade the performance of the HDD when it's on the same channel. However, in real world situations this probably equates to about a .5% performance difference if anything at all.

 

[Awakened2002]

I'd put the cd on one and the cdrw on the other so that you could copy disks on the fly...

 

[AnAndAustin]

It depends upon your uses and reqs but basicly you want the drives most likely to be used simultaneously to be on seperate IDE channels. You should always have your HD with OS installed connected on the first IDE Channel as Master. So if you do on-the-fly CD copies stick the CDROM on as Slave to the HD and the CDRW as master on the Second IDE channel, it's more ideal to have a CDRW drive as a Master, particularly since most of what you copy to it comes from the HD one way or another. Anyway I doubt you'll notice any diff whatever you do, most of this is theoretical and the only time this stuff really matters is when deciding what to do with 2+ HDs.

 

[alexruiz]

Not an expert here, but I would suggest also having both optical drives in the same channel (cable convenience mainly). I have done some CD to CD copy on the fly (Lite on 163d DVD and cyberdrive 36x12x48..... it takes less than 3:40 minutes to do the copy of a 700 MB disk on the fly). Both drives are on the same IDE channel.

 

[Trader05]

i usually set it up as HD's on Primary and CD/DVD's on Secondary, Reader Master, RW Slave

 

[Sid59]

harddrive by itself and the cd drives together. As AnAndAustin "the drives most likely to be used simultaneously to be on seperate IDE channels" .. that's a good rule.

 

[Vic]

Actually, with all CD-RW's using burnproof (or similar) nowadays, it is not necessary to have the burner on a separate channel from the reader. And as HDD speed is more important that optical speed, and as opticals can slow down an HDD, you should put the HDD on it own channel.
HDD = primary master, CD-RW = secondary master, CD-ROM = secondary slave

Now way back before CD-RW's had burnproof (and a slow read meant a coaster), I would have said otherwise. But nowadays that doesn't matter and speed emphasis should be given to the device used the most, the HDD.

 

[thorin]

Check this thread

IDE1 (Primary) - Primary HD (Master)
IDE2 (Secondary) - CDROM (Master), CD Burner (Slave)

Assuming you will normally burn from HD to CD Burner. If your CDROM will be the source for the burner more often then your HD then make the burner slave on IDE1.

Thorin

 

[blackhawk]

I've always done hard drives on one channel, opticals on the other. I dont do cd to burner copies, do an image first.

 

[tm37]

Another vote for HD on one CD on the other.

My current setup is-

Pri MAS - HDD

Sec MAS - DVD
Sec SLV- CDRW

I have used this setup for ages and have never had a problem.

In my new set-up I wouldn't have a DVD right away so I am just going to put the CDRW as the master on the SEC CHannel.

I am going to buy a black DVD in a month or so I will more than likely make it the slave. (haven't decided yet)

 

[dexmanone]

I had a prob, maybe someone has similar, which causes me to put cd's on optional (RAID) IDE's and HDD's on primary/secondary IDE's.

Have:
60G on Primary Master/(60g on Primary Slave coming soon!)
30g on Secondary Master/30g on Secondary Slave
52x24x52 Optional 1 Master/32x12x48 Optional 1 Slave
52x Rom Optional 2 Master/16x DVD Optional 2 Slave

The prob (well, one of them) with the above is cables. The board is a FIC AN11 Stealth. The cables BARELY reach from the optionals to the cds at the top of the case. I'd like to use the two 30g's on the optional but I can't figure out how to set it up. I don't want a RAID set up so I leave the jumbers as is, for optional stuff. When I hook up a drive there it hangs on boot, I'm guessing cause of the jumber.

Anyone else with this?

 

[dpopiz]

just as I expected: everybody has his own idea...well I think I'm going to go with the opticals on one channel since I rarely copy from drive to drive

 

[drG]

I'd say HDD on one channel, opticals on the other. The thing to remember is that a channel is only going to be as fast as its slowest device so if you have a UDMA5 HDD on master & a PIO or UDMA2 optical on slave, the channel is going to run at PIO/UDMA2 speed.

 

[AnAndAustin]

drG I don't think that's been true for a long time. I think the most recent speed limitation was that the Master dictated the maximum speed meaning a slow Master with a faster Slave would limit the Slave to the Master's speed, but I really don't think even that is true any more. In fact I had my main UDMA100 HD on Primary and an old PIO/DMA1 CDROM drive as slave and there was no slow down in benchmarking or usage, my HD still ran in UDMA100 mode.

EDIT: I knew I'd get that Master / Slave thing muddled up the first time LOL!

 

[IPLaw]

Spend $35 and buy a PCI controller card. That is what I did so all four of my devices had its own channel.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Any specific recomendations IPLaw? I always thought you'd need a RAID controller to be able to use more channels, can you use any seperate PCI IDE controller and still allow the use of your onboard IDE channels, I always thought it would disable the onboard ones? Guess I've kind of lost touch with that stuff since the IDE controllers were intergrated into the mobos.

 

[IPLaw]

I recommend the PROMISE ULTRA133TX2 CONTROLLER CARD, which can be purchased from Newegg for $36 shipped. This is not a raid controller, rather just a 2 channel IDE controller. Most of my friends who have 3 or more devices use these cards (as do I). They are cheap, fast (UDMA 133), and drivers are available for any OS, even linux. You do not have to disable your onboard controllers, and if you have a newish mobo, you can probably boot off of a device on one of the channels by selecting 'boot device: other' in your bios. There are cards for a few dollars cheaper, but Promise owns the market, so I would not suggest a generic (like CrapUSA's store brand) card. Transfer rates are the same as an onboard controller, since it has to cross the pci bus as well.

 

[1kayaker]

Here's my deal...
I have a older socket 370motherboard that's udma66(aopen ax-34proII). I have a brand new UDMA-100 controller card. I have two hard drives-10gig udma 66, 20gig udma100, a Pioneer 16x DVD-rom, and a old HP CDRW without burn-proof. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do most of my copying directly from my DVD-rom and not from my Hard Drive. I assume I should I install the controller and put everything on its own channel. But should I hook up the Primary HDD to the controller or the motherboard even though it's only udma66? I'm thinking I should:

UDMA100 Controller
1. Primary HDD
2. Secondary HDD

Motherboard
1. CDRW
2. DVD-rom

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
drG I don't think that's been true for a long time. I think the most recent speed limitation was that the Master dictated the maximum speed meaning a slow Master with a faster Slave would limit the Slave to the Master's speed, but I really don't think even that is true any more. In fact I had my main UDMA100 HD on Primary and an old PIO/DMA1 CDROM drive as slave and there was no slow down in benchmarking or usage, my HD still ran in UDMA100 mode.

EDIT: I knew I'd get that Master / Slave thing muddled up the first time LOL!

This is no longer an issue because most current mobo's support independant device timing. Check the thread I linked earlier for more info.

Thorin