hard drive/ CD/DVD config

[Fike]

I need to figure out how to configure my HD situation. I have found a good cheap drive WD800JB from Western Digital which is a name I trust. The drive is reasonably well regarded in a review at Storage Review.

--But---Here is the problem.

1) I am cheap
2) I have both a CD (ata33) and a DVD (ata 66)drive on seperate IDE channels
3) I want to run both the CD and DVD simultaneously without impacting the performance of a hard drive mounted on the same IDE cable


--so--

I have 3 devices, with three different speeds (ata 33, 66, 100) and I don't want to run at the lowest common denominator.

If the DVD and HD are together, will the hard drive (setup as master) be slowed down to ATA 66?

Will this have an impact?

No, I don't reallly want to get a SATA drive since I can't find a medium sized one (60-80 GB) that is backed up by real performance data like that at storage review.

Ideas anyone:

 

[airfoil]

Can you spend $12?

 

[Fike]

I thought of that, but it seems.......so ...untidy. I know that sounds anal, and it is, butI currently have a RAID card and it is such a pain to get the drivers setup every time I do a reinstall....furthermore, you don't have access to the files until you get the drivers up and running....


I know, I know, quit your whining!

Is copying CDs that much faster from one drive to another without going through an HD? (that may be a rhetorical question)

 

[airfoil]

These are your options:

* Get an IDE card like above. Put your CD drive on it.
* Set up the HDD as Master on the Primary IDE
* Setup DVD as Master on Secondary

OR

Assuming your 'CD' is a CD burner:

* Place the HDD as Primary Master
* Place the ATA66 DVD drive as Slave on the Primary IDE
* Place the CD drive as master on the Secondary IDE

This will free up data transfers to and from the HDD during CD burning.

Installing drivers for the controller is a IMO a *minor* price to pay for a cleaner setup that the controller card will allow - from a data transfer point of view. I could personally live with the extra clutter the additional IDE cable will bring.

 

[AristoV300]

THat is pretty much your only choices or upgrade a newer board that uses SATA drives, but being cheap eliminates that

 

[Fike]

My board does support SATA, but I am not sure whether the low priced SATA are as good as the equivalently priced IDE drives.

Also, both the CD and the DVD are burners. So, I could conceivably burn from one to another.....another reason, I think, to have them on seperate channels......maybe?

 

[bluestrobe]

No way to do it without going with an IDE Controller Card or getting a SATA HD. There is a logical limitation to being cheap.

 

[aatf510]

Originally posted by: Fike
I need to figure out how to configure my HD situation. I have found a good cheap drive WD800JB from Western Digital which is a name I trust. The drive is reasonably well regarded in a review at Storage Review.

--But---Here is the problem.

1) I am cheap
2) I have both a CD (ata33) and a DVD (ata 66)drive on seperate IDE channels
3) I want to run both the CD and DVD simultaneously without impacting the performance of a hard drive mounted on the same IDE cable


--so--

I have 3 devices, with three different speeds (ata 33, 66, 100) and I don't want to run at the lowest common denominator.

If the DVD and HD are together, will the hard drive (setup as master) be slowed down to ATA 66?

Will this have an impact?

No, I don't reallly want to get a SATA drive since I can't find a medium sized one (60-80 GB) that is backed up by real performance data like that at storage review.

Ideas anyone:

They won't run at the lowest common denominator even if you have ATA66 and ATA100 on the same IDE channel. You harddrive will remain at ATA100 (although ATA66 is probably more than enough bandwidth for your harddrive and won't impact the performance)

However, device on the same IDE channel can never run simultaneously without impacting the performance of the other device on the same channel. Therefore putting your harddrives and CD-ROM on the same channel is not the best idea.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

An optical drive that's ATA66??? Am I the only one here who's never heard of this? The fastest optical drive I've ever installed was ATA33. I highly doubt the DVD drive is an ATA66 drive.

I'd put the two opticals on the same channel. How often do you REALLY copy disc to disc? Also, even if you put the HD and the CD burner on a channel, most MOBO's in the past few years offer independent device timing, so each will run at its rated speed.

Failing that, I'd go with airfoil's suggestion and get a controller card. It works great for optical drives. Personally, in my setup, I have my two HD's on one channel and my DVD and CD burners on the second. I have my ATAPI Zip on a Promise card. Setup works great.

 

[Fike]

I thought that the bios boot screens said that the DVD burner was operating at ATA 66. I will go back and confirm that, butI am almost certain of it.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: Fike
My board does support SATA, but I am not sure whether the low priced SATA are as good as the equivalently priced IDE drives.

Syba SD-SATA-IDE

 

[Zepper]

My Plextor 712A can run at ATA66. Pioneer derived DVD-ROM drives (like the AOpen 1648) can too. Some require a jumper to be set to get 66 MHz operation.

.bh.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

What would ATA66 get you on an optical drive anyway? If presently a drive that reads CD's at 52x can acheive that with ATA33, what would the gain be from ATA66 on that drive? It won't increase the read speed, that's a physical limitation of the drive, not the interface.

P.S. How'd you get the 712A to run at ATA66 anyway? Mine has always run at ATA33 on my Chaintech VNF3-250.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Modern IDE connectors support independat device timings, as long as no device on one cable is in PIO mode your devices will all operate at their own DMA level, I would suggest just putting the HDD on the same channel as the optical drive you use the least.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: Fike
My board does support SATA, but I am not sure whether the low priced SATA are as good as the equivalently priced IDE drives.

Syba SD-SATA-IDE

? lost here

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Zepper
My Plextor 712A can run at ATA66. Pioneer derived DVD-ROM drives (like the AOpen 1648) can too. Some require a jumper to be set to get 66 MHz operation.

.bh.

You do realize that UDMA modes are double-clocked, right? So the clock signal for ATA66, is actually 33Mhz, and the clock signal for ATA33, is 16.6Mhz.. (Like in MW DMA Mode 2 as well.) ATA100 is 50Mhz, which is about the limit of signal stability on those cables.

Your quite right though, Plextor and AOpen drives now support ATA66, and I think perhaps some LG models too.