Conecting 4 IDE devices

[Slowlearner]

For a (new) build this weekend, I am trying to sort out the cabling. I have two Pata HDs, a DVD burner, and I can't decide on the 4th: do I to go with a no name CDdrive on hand or get a DVD drive. I thought that the correct set up for something like this was:

Primary IDE HD with OS: Master, HD with data only as Slave, using 80 wire/40 pin cable
Secondary IDE: CD/DVD Reader as Master, CD/DVD writer as Slave, using 40 wire/40 pin cable

But when I googled this query, I found all manner of crap with no clear cut answer anywhere. The PC will be used primarily for email/websurfing/office apps, and video capturing/editing of old VHS/new digital video footage.

This is what I have: 8RDA+v1.0(after repairs), Athlon XP1900+(Palo), Crucial 2x256 2100RAM, Seagate 160GB (new) 8mCache, Maxtor 60GB(warranty replacement), Sapphire 9000 radeon, Win XP Home, Nec 350 DVDRW( new)- most of the components are discards after selective upgrade/replacement of my kids' comps.

 

[Zepper]

For optimum performance put each IDE device on its own channel - SiliconImage based adapter cards are flexible and cheap. Failing that, you want the source drive on a different channel from the target drive in a data transfer situation as much as possible, as only one drive per channel can operate at a time.
.bh.

 

[Philippine Mango]

The optical drives should be on different channels especially since you will be doing copying... The reason why its ok to have an optical drive on the master channel is because the only time you will be using the drive is to burn/copy which shouldn't be a big deal. A good setup would be:
HDD master, Optical Writer slave
Optical Reader Master Another HDD? Slave

Or if you get a second HDD then put it as master and optical as slave on second channel, it can be difficult to achieve since you have cable length problems and case space problems. Which actually make serial ata that more attractive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
The optical drives should be on different channels especially since you will be doing copying... The reason why its ok to have an optical drive on the master channel is because the only time you will be using the drive is to burn/copy which shouldn't be a big deal. A good setup would be:
HDD master, Optical Writer slave
Optical Reader Master Another HDD? Slave

All good except for that last part - if you put a HDD and an optical drive on the same channel, the HD (ATA device) should always be the Master, and the optical (ATAPI device) should be the slave. Just the way it is, although you could probably get away with it without too many problems, kind of like people that use IDE cables that exceed 18".

My current solution which has more-or-less worked alright for me - buy a PCI IDE controller card (Promise Ultra100 TX2 in my case), stick the HDs on that, and then put the opticals on the mobo IDE. (Since most fancy PCI IDE controllers sold today don't really work all that well with optical/ATAPI devices on them, save for perhaps the CMD/SI ones.) Use the MS default IDE drivers too, for the mobo controllers, they are the most compatible for opticals/burners.

The only issue with that setup, is that modern chipsets bridge the mobo IDE ports to an internal connection with higher bandwidth than the regular PCI bus, whereas in my solution the HDs are on the slower PCI bus, and the opticals on the high-speed chipset IDE bus. (OTOH, that could be a benefit for burning too.)

The added benefit of putting your primary HDs on a PCI IDE controller card like the Promise that is treated as SCSI by the OS - I can use 48-bit LBA HDs with DOS and Win9x with impunity, and I can move my entire OS installation between different mobos without having to re-install W2K/XP, because the boot-time PCI IDE controllers never change. I've found that to be quite useful in the past. Additionally, the Promise controllers can use UDMA mode for the HDs in DOS mode, whereas CMD/SI ones require a driver in the CONFIG.SYS. This is useful for high-speed disk-to-disk image backups using Ghost 2003.

Btw, to the OP - if you are going to be doing video-capturing, specifically, you probably want to put your OS/apps/pagefile on one physical HD, and then capture to the other physical HD, with both HDs on seperate IDE channels.

 

[overclock]

And if you have them use 80 wire ATA cables all around. Many of the new 16x burners require them, ie Pioneer and Plextor for sure. With all of the hard drives I've bought over the years I have at least a dozen 80 wire cables.

 

[Slowlearner]

If I went with onboard IDE connectors, in a Sonata, there is no way a 18" inch cable can be hooked up to a HDD and Optical drive, I will have to use a 24" which will be twisted and turned every which way. So it seems to me that an controller card is the only elegant and well organized solution?

Any other suggestions/workarounds ?

 

[CraigRT]

as a general rule, 1 hdd, 1 optical on each channel. you can do them whichever way you want really, but the transferring between hdd's will be slowed down if they share a ribbon.

or as stated above, 1 on their OWN channel if possible, but that's sometimes not an option.

 

[Zepper]

Yes, that is, in my view, the big drawback of the cases with the HDs 90 deg off from the other drives - you can't really hook one of each to the same standard cable - unless you mount all your drives in the 5" bays. The 90 deg offset bays are only good where you're using SATA or SCSI. So I generally prefer the SLK3700AMB to the Sonata or BQE.
24" flat cables with the right connector spacing might be made to work with some inspired origami folding.
.bh.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Zepper
24" flat cables with the right connector spacing might be made to work with some inspired origami folding.

Spoken like someone that has worked on many machines. Truely, cable routing/installation is an art form.

 

[da philster]

I've just ran into this same issue while upgrading my Dell Dimension 2400, and the solution that I came up with was to buy two 36 inch 80-conductor Ultra DMA cables. The SLAVE/MASTER end connectors on these new cables are 12 inches apart and should reach all of my drives. The locations of the drives (DVD's at top of midsize tower and HD's mounted vertical at bottom of chassis) are too far apart for the connectors on the short factory EIDE cable select cables to reach both a DVD burner and HD. I plan on putting my 40 GB system/boot HD (MASTER) and a newly added Plextor PX-712A (SLAVE DVD burner) on the primary EIDE channel, and my 120 GB multimedia storage HD (MASTER) and Dell OEM NEC ND-1100A (SLAVE DVD burner) on the secondary EIDE channel. I want to have the most efficient configuration for burning from DVD (ND-1100A) to DVD (PX-712A), and from the 120 GB multimedia drive to the new PX-712A. I guess that buying an additional PCI EIDE controller might have been cheaper (about $16 compared to $20) and less crowded, but it didn't occur to me that the two cables would be more expensive than a controller - before I bought the cables, read this post, then checked the prices of controllers. I'm hoping that the longer cable doesn't negatively impact performance. Anyway, that's my alternative - who's got that book on origami? :roll: