Does master & slave even matter?

[Talee969]

Hi all,
I have a question about my ide device configuration. I have 2 WD 120gb special edition harddrive, a 32x lite-on cd writer, and a 16x lite-on dvd-rom drive. What's the best way to configure these drives? Should I make both harddrives as the masters of each ide channel and the optical drives as the slaves? Also, is it possible to connect the master drive in the middle connector of the ide cable and the slave drive at the top connector? I'm assuming you can, just as long as you set your jumpers accordingly. Would this setup reduce performance in anyway? Sorry for all the questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.


Tim

 

[Joemonkey]

Position on-cable makes no difference in master/slave configuration

I would master/slave the 2 hard drives on primary, and master/slave the 2 cdrom drives on secondary

copying on the fly works better when both CDROMs aren't on the same cable/channel tho

 

[ProviaFan]

Having a slow optical drive on the same channel as a fast hard drive can reduce performance to the lowest common denominator sometimes. Zip drives are even worse, so it would be best to put your two hard drives on one channel and the two optical drives on the other.

 

[Jhhnn]

With modern chipsets, it doesn't make much difference. Each device is allowed to communicate at its own max speed, regardless of what's on the channel with it. It's only one device at a time per channel, though.

And it depends on what tasks are performed. For fast on the fly CD copies, put the two CD devices on different channels, regardless of master/slave relationships.

I always put the boot drive as IDE 0 Master, just because that's the way it had to be in the old days. Modern BIOS and rounded cables give a lot more leeway. If you have flat cables, don't fight it, put the hdd's on one and the cd's on the other just so you don't go nuts.....