C/S PATA question

[ArisVer]

For Ultra ATA/66 compliant cables, the master drive is placed on the outside (end) cable connector and the slave drive is placed on the intermediate cable connector.


This is a quote from a hard disk manufacturer. According to distance, the drive closest to the mainboard IDE connectors, must be faster than the outside drive (for identical disks). I have this question and i have a two different disks. Is it better to connect the fastest to the middle connector and the slowest to the outside end? The middle one is my main disk, and the outter my file/backup disk.

 

[razel]

1st time I've heard of that. You could avoid having two HDD IDE drives on the same cable by plugging each into their own cable onto two separate IDE connectors on the mainboard. If you don't have two connectors on the mainboard (rare) and you still want to follow their suggestion, I'd set the jumper on your main drive to master, plug it into the middle connector, then set the jumper of your other drive to slave and plug it into the outer.

 

[Blain]

For Ultra ATA/66 compliant cables, the master drive is placed on the outside (end) cable connector and the slave drive is placed on the intermediate cable connector.


This is a quote from a hard disk manufacturer. According to distance, the drive closest to the mainboard IDE connectors, must be faster than the outside drive (for identical disks). I have this question and i have a two different disks. Is it better to connect the fastest to the middle connector and the slowest to the outside end? The middle one is my main disk, and the outter my file/backup disk.

We must read this quote... Got a link?

 

[ArisVer]

fireball_lct10_ata_jumpers.pdf

I do not have the link. I got it off Seagate , who owns Maxtor, who owns Quantum etc. Can i post the file here? It's a 170KB.
It is from an old Quantum Fireball lct series, most likely from their support section.

razel, my setup is as you described. Master in the middle and slave on the outter end. About a month ago i was running Ubuntu and my transfer speeds where about 22MB/s~26MB/s (large movie file test). And that was from IDE0 udma66 master to IDE1 udma100 master, both in the middle connector and 7200rpm.

Ubuntu was a fresh install and i accidentally deleted it. Maybe it needed fine tuning. I'm new to linux and don't know how it works yet.

 

[razel]

'both in the middle connector' sounds like both HDDs were on separate cables. Did you happen to have an optical drive connected as a slave? On very old IDE controllers CD-ROMs can/will throttle you to 33MBs. Other thing I can think of is perhaps the drives or system (your Athlon XP1600) just aren't capable. Drivers, bad IDE cable.

 

[ArisVer]

I had three disks and a dvd writer.
IDE0, Seagate 30GB, udma66, master, middle.
IDE0, Quantum 5GB, udma33 or 66, slave, outside.
IDE1, Maxtor 250GB, udma100, master, middle.
IDE1, dvd writer. i burned a cd in less than 20 seconds iirc.
Ubuntu was on Maxtor only.

The reports on having different capability drives on one cable are contradicting. Some say it does not matter. I have not heard anything about a disk and cdrom combo. My cables are okay from what i know. I replaced them about two months ago. And i do not know anything about drivers in linux. It will be (and must be) my next learning area.

 

[razel]

Wow, brings back memories. I have a feeling that the 30GB Seagate may be throttled to udma33 by the quantum or the Seagate 30GB is only capable of the 22MB-26MB speed in that crowded setup. If it were a rainly day I'd simplify to:

IDE0, Seagate 30GB, udma66, cable select, outside (end).
IDE1, Maxtor 250GB, udma100, cable select, outside (end).

and try to copy a file to see if things improve. Also make sure you're running 80pin wire cables.

 

[acrosome]

I've never run into any problems with placement of the drives by speed, and I have mutliple Maxtors still in use. Typically the IDE controller will throttle down to match the drive with the slowest speed. That's why optical drives are usually placed on a separate port because they are mostly UDMA33. Also, master/slave location on the cable should only matter if you set cable select on the drives. You can manually put them on master/slave and it won't matter where you connect them.

 

[Elixer]

I've never run into any problems with placement of the drives by speed, and I have mutliple Maxtors still in use. Typically the IDE controller will throttle down to match the drive with the slowest speed. That's why optical drives are usually placed on a separate port because they are mostly UDMA33. Also, master/slave location on the cable should only matter if you set cable select on the drives. You can manually put them on master/slave and it won't matter where you connect them.

Hogwash.
There is no throttling done. There was a time that it did do that, but that was when PIO modes were the norm.

All current UDMA IDE devices don't have that limitation, and by current, I mean those made in the last 10 years.
You still get a (very) slight speed up if you don't run them off the same cable, but, most of the time, you will never notice the difference in anything but benchmarks.

 

[ArisVer]

Thank you for your answers.
It could be the slowest disk holding back the speed of the fastest from what you are saying. I thought that it was only happening when both disks were in use, a slow and a fast one from the same cable. A disk idling shouldn't hold back the speed of the other disk.

I do not mind having a 20MB/s transfer rate, it is fast for home use. An optimized system though makes me feel better.

I will try them alone on the cables to see there transfer rates, but only when i open the case again.

 

[corkyg]

If you manually set your PATA drives to Master, Slave, then you can use either connector. If you select CS, then the end is Master and the middle slave. I have them set manually on my old XP machine - never noted any performance difference in actual work.

If that quote is by Quantum, it has to be dated somewhere back in the 90s.