Need advice on setting up IDE devices

[RupertPupkin2]

I need to connect a DVD-ROM (Lite-On 16x), CD-RW (Lite-On 48x24x48), 120G HD (WD 2 Cache) and a 80G HD (Maxtor 2mg Cache). I don't have a board yet (still waiting for nForce2 reviews), but lets assume that it will not have RAID.

I am thinking of having the boot HD (haven't decided which to make the boot HD yet) as the master on the primary channel and the other HD as the master on the secondary channel. The DVD would be the slave on the primary and the CD-RW would be the slave on the secondary.

Does this make sense, or it there a better way?

TIA

 

[Shooters]

It really depends on how you plan on using the drives. If you plan on doing a lot of hard drive to hard drive transfers then put them on separate channels. If you plan on doing a lot of disc to disc burning then put the DVD and CDRW on separate channels. If you think you'll be burning from the Maxtor a lot then keep it on a separate channel from the burner. Get the idea? Don't worry too much about which device should be master and which should be slave on a given channel because it won't really make a difference.....except of course for your boot drive which should always be primary master.

 

[John]

Does this make sense, or it there a better way?

Spend ~$25 on an ata100/133 controller card, and make everyone a master.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

Originally posted by: John

Does this make sense, or it there a better way?

Spend ~$25 on an ata100/133 controller card, and make everyone a master.

this would be a good idea, especially if you plan to do any dvd to cdrw burning....it gets slow if they are on the same controller

 

[warrenpeace]

"Spend ~$25 on an ata100/133 controller card, and make everyone a master"

Agreed... I have had almost the exact same configuration in the past (liteon DVD and CDRW and 2 hard drives in non-raid), and i added a Promise ata133 card (it came with my 80 gig maxtor HD) and i had significantly better performance when buring CD's with CloneCD than i did with the two HD's on IDE 1 and the CD drives on IDE2.

 

[propellerhead]

Yes, it makes sense. Go with your plan and save a PCI slot.

 

[RupertPupkin2]

Thanks for the advice. I think I will go without the additional IDE card at first. If I add a card later and make every device a master, will I run into problems with drive letter assignments (e.g. will my f:\ drive remain my f:\ drive when moved from secondary slave to a master on the new IDE card)? I will most likely be running XP if that makes a difference.

TIA