2 HD's and 2 CD-ROM's...who's master and who's slave??

[XFelony]

If you have 2 Hard drives (mine happen to be both ATA/100 drives) and 2 CD-drive's (mine is one reader and one CDRW). What is the best configuration for master/slave and which IDE interface do you plug them into?

Thanks...
XF

 

[billyjak]

IDE 1 Master+Slave HD
IDE 2 CD Burnner Master, CD Slave

 

[Shooters]

I totally agree with billyjak's configuration.

 

[fitzhue]

If you're doing a lot of hdd to hdd transfers or will doing on-the-fly burning, you might want a differnet configuration, because only one device on an IDE cable can make use of the IDE bus at a given time. This would be bad if you were transferring files from one hdd to another because only one hard drive could make use of the bus, resulting in very low speed. Also, if you want to do on-the-fly burning, it may not be a good idea because again only one device can use the bus at any given time. This might result in a lot of buffer under run errors because the stream of data would eventually be interrupted. Of course, this would be prevented by using a cdrw that has burn proof. It's definitly something you may want to think about if you want the most speed. You have to analyze what you'll be doing and attach the devices on the IDE bus accordingly.

 

[flippinfleck]

You may want to set it up a little differently depending on your needs. Do you do a lot of cd - cd copying?

IDE 1 - HD1 master
cd-rom slave

IDE 2 - CD-RW master
HD2 slave

Do a lot of burning from drive to cd or cd to drive?

IDE 1 - HD1 master
HD2 slave

IDE 2 - CD-RW master
cd-rom slave (just like billyjack said)

 

[Dan]

I agree with fitzhue's points. Consistent with his advice, I'd set up as follows:

IDE 1: Master: HDD; Slave: CD-ROM
IDE 2: Master: CDRW; Slave: HDD

Another alternative that I've found very satisfactory is to use an ATA/100 PCI card such as the ones from Maxtor and Promise and put each device on it's own channel.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Fitzhue has the valid points in his post. I would say that the important thing to consider is where the MAJORITY of you copying is going from and where it is going to. For instance, if all of your burning will come from the main hard drive and the CD-ROM, then Dan's got it set right. If you will be copying a lot from the second hard drive, then I would probably put the CD-RW as Slave on the Primary channel and the CD-ROM and second hard drive on the Secondary channel. In my experience it is almost always better to separate the CD devices from each other and the hard drives from each other, but if you have a true need to transfer from BOTH CD devices to BOTH hard disks then set it up the way billyjak said.

 

[XFelony]

Thanks everyone!!! I will evaluate the way most of my copying will be done and set it up the best way for my situation.

Later....
XF