IDE setup... 4 drives

[dboy]

I'm currently using a IBM 60gxp as my HD, set to primary master. My secondary IDE has a DVD and 24x cdrw on it. I'm getting a 40gig 5400 rpm maxtor HD tomorrow... what's the best setup once I add it? Make it primary slave? How much performance difference would there be between that and adding a IDE controller? The maxtor is going to be just storage - movies, mp3, etc. So blazing speed isn't critical on it, but I also don't want to slow my 60gxp any.

 

[sohcrates]

you usually want to allow each hard drive to be a master on a channel

so i would keep your 60gxp where it is (obviously) but make the new drive secondary master. which slave you make the dvd versus the cd-rw is debatable though...there's been a bunch of threads about that...kinda depends which drive you do most of your burning from, etc.

the different between using onboard IDE versus IDE add-in card are negligible

 

[BishopSix]

You must also remember that when dealing with IDE drives, each device can only run as fast as the slowest device on the channel.

If you setup your cdr on an IDE add-in card, your OS my detect it as a SCSI device. This may not be a big problem, unless your cd burning software or dvd software will only detect IDE devices.

 

[dboy]

so bishop, you're saying that slaving the dvd or cdrw to one of the HDs will slow it down? That's what I'd heard before... that's why I was interested inthe controller card, keep my current setup as is and put the new HD on a new channel. but in lieu of that, how much hit would I see putting the maxtor slave to the 60gxp? They're both ata100.

 

[BenRosey]

I don't think anything would be noticeable.

But why not try it? It's easy to switch stuff around quickly and verify what you think will work best.

I've always thought there is not much difference, and haven't seen much to say otherwise yet.

 

[TssTech2]

the other thing to take into consideration is that on the fly burning on a CDRW is not adviseable with both CD drives on the same channel. It is recommended that the CD drives be on seperate channels, so that might be a factor in your decision. The speeds on the HDD will be negligible even if they drop to the slowest speed of the connection. Most newer CD drives can keep up with the faster speeds.