IDE port questions

[flipdon]

here goes....

1. i've read that putting hard drives on their own IDE port increases their performance, because they don't have to contend for the bus perhaps. is there any truth to this?

2. i have a promise ata-100 controller along with the usual 2 IDE ports on the mobo. is it ok to put my boot drive onto the controller card, since i've read there can be a performance gain using the card compared to the mobo ports.

3. is there any reason to put all my IDE devices in their own port? and are there certain combinations of devices i shouldn't do, like say a zip drive along with a hard drive, that will lower the max speed of one device?

any other tips that might come in handy? thanks in advance....

 

[ahabeger]

Yes, only one device on each IDE cable can be active at one time

I would say boot off of the motherboard as that is normally easier to set up or if you ever decide to remove the card it makes things easier, if your onboard controller is only ATA33 booting off of the card might be a better idea since some hard drives can actually max out ATA33, but if it is ATA66 on your motherboard no HD can max that out right now

A zip drive moves data close to 1.4 MB/sec, that in no way will max out any IDE channel, the classic setup for HD, zip and CD-ROM would be the HD alone on the primary channel and the zip and CD on the second. if you have more than one HD I would say put the device you use least on the same channel with the device you use most, that way the most used device will not be getting much interference from the other device.

ATA/IDE/EIDE will always go at the speed that the controller can go, the drives will each do their own thing, it is a SCSI thing where the chain will slow down to the slowest device