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ideal IDE device setup?

A

arswihart

Senior member
1) I heard from some computer article that having your cd-rom and an hd on the same ide channel will not reduce the hd performance, even though the cd-rom is only running at ata33, while the hd is capable of ata100. Is this true?

2) Given that the above is true, is this actually possible? I haven't used ide cables that were even close to having enough slack between the master and slave connections for this to be possible. Are long enough ide cables made?

3) Are transfers between separate IDE devices fastest when the devices are on different IDE channels, or the same IDE channel (ie, when they are in a "master/slave relationship")?

Thanks a million,
Andrew
 
this is a I am tired because I need sleep but I don't want to because I want to continue to shop for computer parts online bump.

bump.
Bill
 
Generally you should put any optical disk drive on another IDE channel other than the HD that would be sending data to it.
 
Originally posted by: arswihart
1) I heard from some computer article that having your cd-rom and an hd on the same ide channel will not reduce the hd performance, even though the cd-rom is only running at ata33, while the hd is capable of ata100. Is this true?

2) Given that the above is true, is this actually possible? I haven't used ide cables that were even close to having enough slack between the master and slave connections for this to be possible. Are long enough ide cables made?

3) Are transfers between separate IDE devices fastest when the devices are on different IDE channels, or the same IDE channel (ie, when they are in a "master/slave relationship")?

Thanks a million,
Andrew
Click to expand...

1. no. the hard drive performance will drop. the channel will automatically revert to ata33. and since hard drives today are capable of around 38-45mb/s,you will se a performance drop.

2. according to the ata specifications, the max length is 18 inches. but some manufacturers producde cables which are longer.the serial ata standard sets it to 1 metre or around 3.1 feet.

3) imho, it think it will be faster on seperate channels
 
1) Anyone heard otherwise? Will a CD-rom at ata33 on the same ide channel as a hard drive necessarily make the hd run at ata33? I heard this was true in the past, but not anymore, from an article on optimizing pc hard drives on www.sospubs.co.uk
 
I asked a similar question here.

I have heard that current MBs support independent device timings. Therefore, putting a slower CD/DVD drive on the same channel with a HD should not affect performance. However, I'd love to know the truth. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: arswihart
1) Anyone heard otherwise? Will a CD-rom at ata33 on the same ide channel as a hard drive necessarily make the hd run at ata33? I heard this was true in the past, but not anymore, from an article on optimizing pc hard drives on www.sospubs.co.uk
Click to expand...

Yes.
Bill
 
I don't have a benchmark on it but I do know that my system x-fers faster copying from the CD to the HD with dedicated channels for each device, but I don't think this is specifically related to the ATA33-100 issue. When x-fering data between two drives it is better to split the load across both channels as opposed to sharing it across a single so the reads and writes do not share the same path. Using the HD under normal conditions with the CD tagging along idle didn't seem to slow it down. At least I didn't notice it.

However, I have read the same advice about not sharing slower devices on the same channel, but this was back in the days of 486's so that part may no longer be true. Since IDE cables are cheap, and many people have left overs lying around on the floor and in the closet, there is little reason not to spit them up.
 
So, and I think this is true, it doesn't matter if you have a cd-rom and a hd on the same channel as far as EACH device's individual performance goes (ie, the hd will still run at ata 100+), but transfers will always be faster between devices on separate IDE channels. Anyone want to rebuff that ass?

Let me ask one more thing, does anyone think transfers are more RELIABLE between devices on separate IDE channels as opposed to devices on the same channel in a master/slave relationship?
 
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