HD attachment to IDE connectors

[csimsic]

Have 2 HD ATA/100 and 2 CDROM ATA/33 drives. Want to get best possible speed out of the combo.

1. If I attach one HD and one CDR to IDE1 on the motherboard will the HD run at its rated speed or will it be reduced to match the speed of the slowest device attached to IDE1, i.e., the CDR ?? My Motherboard says it has "dual channel registers for the on board IDE connectors".

2. In above attachment scheme is used will drive assignments be: IDE1: HD = C: and CDR = D:, then IDE2: HD = E: and CDR = F: ??

3. If I buy an I/O card with two more IDE connectors I can attach each of the four devices to its own channel. Does this make sense to anyone but me ??

4. If each device is attached to its own IDE connector does it matter which of the cable attachment points are used to connect to the drive ??

5. How should the individual drives be jumpered?? "master" or "cable select" ???

Your input and help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Carl

 

[boyRacer]

I would keep the 2 HDs on the primary and the 2 optical drives on the secondary.

If you end up getting a seperate controller... i would put both the HDs on that on seperate channels and have the optical drives on the motherboard on their own channel as well.

The jumper on the drive should determin whether its master or slave so it shouldnt matter which end of the cable you put them. But if you do end up putting eacj drive on their own dedicated channels... just set them to master.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: csimsic
Have 2 HD ATA/100 and 2 CDROM ATA/33 drives. Want to get best possible speed out of the combo.

1. If I attach one HD and one CDR to IDE1 on the motherboard will the HD run at its rated speed or will it be reduced to match the speed of the slowest device attached to IDE1, i.e., the CDR ?? My Motherboard says it has "dual channel registers for the on board IDE connectors".

2. In above attachment scheme is used will drive assignments be: IDE1: HD = C: and CDR = D:, then IDE2: HD = E: and CDR = F: ??

3. If I buy an I/O card with two more IDE connectors I can attach each of the four devices to its own channel. Does this make sense to anyone but me ??

4. If each device is attached to its own IDE connector does it matter which of the cable attachment points are used to connect to the drive ??

5. How should the individual drives be jumpered?? "master" or "cable select" ???

Your input and help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Carl

1. no the devices will run at their rated speed & will not be downgraded to a lower speed.

2. No,the hard drives will take the drive letters first then the removable media drives will take the laters after the hard drives have taken them.

3. if you buy an other card you will have 2 more channels so yes you could have your 4 devices each on it's own IDE cable if you wanted.

4. you can either use slave or master it dont really matter since they would be alone,but i would use then as Master.

5. I like to leave mine as CS (cable select) then use the 80 wire cable to tell it what it should be this way if i cange stuff i dont have to mess with jumpers. . remember Blue end to mobo,Grey to Slave & black end goes to master.

 

[StraightPipe]

"I would keep the 2 HDs on the primary and the 2 optical drives on the secondary."

emmm hmm.

no need to buy a card unless you want to add extra drives

 

[WinkOsmosis]

I've always thought that CS didn't work with regular cables and needed special ones. I feel like an idiot now.