longer ide cables?

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keebeen

Senior member
Feb 15, 2000
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I've got an Antec Sonata case and two hard drives. Right now, I have the two hard drives connected as Primary Master and Slave. Then I have my DVDRW as Secondary Master. The problem is, I want to move my 2nd hard drive to Secondary Master and then change my DVDRW to Secondary Slave because I read in a thread that having two hard drives on the same IDE channel slows them down.

In the Sonata case, the hard drives are rotated 90 degress so that the back of the hard drive is facing the side of the case. Therefore, if I want to connect my DVDRW and my 2nd hard drive on the same channel, the IDE cable is not long enough to stretch from the hard drive to the DVDRW up top. Are there ATA100 ide cables that have a longer gap between the two connectors for the ide devices? The ones that came with my Asus P4P800 m/b aren't long enough.

What else can I do? Perhaps hard drive brackets on my 2nd hard drive and move it up closer to the DVDRW instead? Any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
G

Gravity

Diamond Member
Mar 21, 2003
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I've never heard that noticable speed impairment occurs when two drives share the same ide channel. I think I understand the config you are shooting for but what isn't working the way you want it?

I'm not sure what you are doing is going to work. I think that the max length of ide cables is 24".

Also, you may want to consider an ide card which will give you 2 additional ide slots.

I have 2 drives per slot on my primary and secondary ide chans as well as 2 on each ide card (pci) with no noticeable performance hits.

Just fyi.
 
Z

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
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The spec is 18" but there are 24 and 36" IDE cables out there (be sure to get 80-wire, ATA-133 rated) but some have had problems with them. They seem to work OK for most. The one they carry on hypermicro.com is one of the better ones, but you pay substantially more than for ordinary ones. Get free ground shipping from hypermicro if you mention StorageReview.com . www.svc.com also has 24 and 36" round IDE.
. Remember that the ATA133 rated cables are connector-specific. The mobo connector on the cable (usually blue) must be plugged into the mobo for the cable to work. On the old 40-wire cables, you could plug any connector in anywhere (unless they were CS cables) I often plugged the middle connector into the mobo on cramped cases.
.bh.
 
K

keebeen

Senior member
Feb 15, 2000
233
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Originally posted by: Gravity
I've never heard that noticable speed impairment occurs when two drives share the same ide channel. I think I understand the config you are shooting for but what isn't working the way you want it?

I'm not sure what you are doing is going to work. I think that the max length of ide cables is 24".

Also, you may want to consider an ide card which will give you 2 additional ide slots.

I have 2 drives per slot on my primary and secondary ide chans as well as 2 on each ide card (pci) with no noticeable performance hits.

Just fyi.
Click to expand...

the config i'm trying to run is just to have my 2nd hd on the secondary ide channel with my dvdrw drive. the problem i have is that it's not possible to connect my 2nd hd to my dvdrw because of the way the case is made. therefore, i'm trying to find longer ide cables to allow me to do that. or i may just have to get hard drive brackets so i can move my hd up to one of the 5.25" bays so its closer to my dvdrw.

 
tracerbullet

tracerbullet

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2001
1,661
19
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I think the brackets may be your only choice.

I like the config of one hard drive and one CD / DVD per cable. For example, if you wanted to copy info from one drive to another, then on the same cable that data gets read, moved through the cable to the board, routed back up the cable, and then to the hard drive, and repeat. Witht hem on different cables, it can be a steady pipeline. Ditto for copying CD's - having the drives on different cables makes the "on the fly" go a lot faster in my experience.

I have a RAID board in my Sonata, so each of the two hard drvies and the CD and DVD drives have their own cable on IDE's 1 through 4. That might be an option for you, but of course would cost getting a new board. That controller card was a good idea too in that respect.

Hmm, I've got a PCI slot hard drive controller card laying around, came with a new drive I purchased around Thanksgiving. Never been used, PM me if you're interested in it. I'd recommend just doing the bracket idea though, much simpler.
 
K

keebeen

Senior member
Feb 15, 2000
233
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0
Originally posted by: tracerbullet
I think the brackets may be your only choice.

I like the config of one hard drive and one CD / DVD per cable. For example, if you wanted to copy info from one drive to another, then on the same cable that data gets read, moved through the cable to the board, routed back up the cable, and then to the hard drive, and repeat. Witht hem on different cables, it can be a steady pipeline. Ditto for copying CD's - having the drives on different cables makes the "on the fly" go a lot faster in my experience.

I have a RAID board in my Sonata, so each of the two hard drvies and the CD and DVD drives have their own cable on IDE's 1 through 4. That might be an option for you, but of course would cost getting a new board. That controller card was a good idea too in that respect.

Hmm, I've got a PCI slot hard drive controller card laying around, came with a new drive I purchased around Thanksgiving. Never been used, PM me if you're interested in it. I'd recommend just doing the bracket idea though, much simpler.
Click to expand...


My m/b has RAID onboard... it's an Asus P4P800 Deluxe... but i just never bothered to set it up in RAID config cuz i heard that setting it up in RAID would involve formatting both my hard drives or something? And i just didn't wanna go through that hassle... i'll probably go with the HD bracket idea for now... and maybe get an external 120gb hd later on so i can backup my stuff and try out the RAID thing. :) Thanks for the offer though.
 
K

keebeen

Senior member
Feb 15, 2000
233
0
0
Originally posted by: Zepper
Hey keebeen,
. Did you miss my post re. long cables above?
.bh.
Click to expand...

oh sorry. yeah, i guess i could go for the 24" or 36" cables too. but the cables might be more expensive than the hard drive brackets?
 
tracerbullet

tracerbullet

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2001
1,661
19
81
Well, you don't HAVE to actually run RAID to use those slots. My gigabyte has a setting in the BIOS to run those extra IDE slots as either RAID or as straightforward IDE slots instead. Maybe you have the same feature? If so, you may already have extra cables on hand to use.
 
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