Looking for suggestions for my IDE dilemma.

[sephroth777]

Currently I have a WD1200JB HD connected on my primary IDE, and on my secondary IDE I have as master a Yamaha CRW-F1 and slave Pioneer 106S Dvd Rom. I had to RMA my HD to Western Digital and hope to get the drive back this week. Over the weekend I picked up a Seagate 200gb 8mb HD at Compusa for $103 (could not pass up on that deal!) And, now I have ordered the Pioneer DVR-108 burner (my first DVD burner). Now I have 5 IDE devices with 4 channels available. Please bear in mind I have an Antec SX1030 case which makes cabling ok except for the fact when a slave device is connected to the primary ide channel when a hard drive is already there since twisting the slave connector to reach the drive above the hard drive is quite difficult. (Plus reports state keeping the HD alone on the Primary IDE is best). I have a Promise Ultra 100 PCI hanging around from 5 years ago. How should I set up this system?

--I was thinking to use the Seagate HD as the only drive on the primary IDE channel and on the secondary IDE master would be the Pioneer DVD burner and slave Yamaha CRW-F1. Then connect the Promise Ultra 100 PCI card for the Pioneer Dvd-Rom. And as of the WD1200JB (to replace the Bigfoot 9.6gb) put it in my POS box which I use to download and share files.

OR

--Seagate HD on primary (OS/GAMES) and WD1200JB on secondary (use as storage of data/mp3/movies/images), and connect all three CD/DVD drives to the Promise Ultra 100 PCI card as Pioneer DVD-R on IDE1 and on IDE 2 Yamaha CRW-F1 and Pioneer DVD-ROM.

HOW SHOULD I SET UP THIS SYSTEM?

Main system specs (gaming/internet/etc)
AMD XP2800+ (11.5*200=2300mhz) /1GB Corsair PC3500 XMS/Asus A7N8X Deluxe/ATI 9700 Pro

POS specs (file sharing/internet)
Intel PII-350/224mb Sdram PC100/Quantum Bigfoot 9.6gb (yuck!)/Asus P2VB-XV with onboard video

 

[Richard98]

I, personally, would dump the CD-RW drive and connect the 2 hard drives to the primary controller and the 2 DVD drives to the secondary controller. If you're determined to keep the yamaha, either of your options should work.

 

[sephroth777]

"If you don't mind the comparitvely lazy performance, Hook the seagate up to your Promise. I have a Promise Ultra 100TX2, both it and the Ultra 100 support 48bit LBA (for drives larger than 137GB), but only if flashed with the latest bioses. Optical drives on a promise are always very sketchy. May work, may not. I'd run the optical off the mb and the hard drives off the Promise for sure. I'd put the 120WD on the other channel of the Promise."

How about this suggestion? or would my system run better if the HDD are on the motherboard?