Is this the optimal IDE setup for me ?

[sean2002]

Here's my problem, I have a Epox 8KHA+ in a Antec 830 with 1 HD,1 DVD and 1 CDRW drive. I usally keep the HD as primary master, the DVD as secondary master and the CDRW as secondary slave, this setup worked fine for me with my old motherbard, an Iwill KK266. Nows here what screws me up, the CDRW is in the lowest drive bay but still when it is hooked up to the slave connector on the IDE cable it won't reach to connect to the MB, so the DVD and CDRW have to be on the end of there cables. So I bought a ATA-100 PCI card, now should I put the hard drive on the card by it's self or leave it on the MB and hook up the DVD & CDRW to card.

 

[Migroo]

I'd say that:

a) there probably isnt much speed difference, so thats a no
b) if you have any problems in the future with devices, the PCI card is more likely to fail than the onboard IDE. You might have less problems in boot etc.

What do people think?

 

[sean2002]

This is strange, XP will see the HD fine on the ATA-100 card but won't see my CDR or DVD drives

 

[amoralist]

Rules:

Optimize for the tasks you most frequently do...

If you do DVD to HD ripping: Try to keep your DVD seperate from your HD

If you do CD to CDR burning: Try to keep your DVD seperate from your CDRW.

If you do HD to CDR backups, Try to keep your CDRW seperate from your HD.

If you do HD to HD copying, Try to keep your HD's seperate from eachother.

If you have more channels then devices, Try to keep each device on its own channel/cable.

If you have one controller that is faster than another, Try to put your most frequently accessed devices on that controller.

A further optimization is interpreting "seperate" to not only mean seperate channels but seperate controllers...


Jason