Optimum cabling for 2 HDs, 1 CDR/RW, and 1 CD-Rom

[chrislong]

Hi All
I'm doing a little maintenance in my computer in the next week (replacing a fan and power supply) and have decided that the arrangement of my 2 Hds, 1 CDR/RW and 1 Cd-Rom could be improved a bit. I'm looking to optimize heat dissipation, airflow, etc; so while I'm at it--

What is the proper (optimum) way to hook up these 4 pieces of hardware to the Primary and Secondary IDEs? I have my main HD (IBM 45Gb 7500), my old backup HD (Fujitsu 5.4 5400), my Yamaha 40/10/20 CDR/RW, and my old CD-Rom drive (Lite-On,40X non-DMA drive)? What should be the arrangement as far as Primary (master/slave) Secondary (master/slave) goes?


I thought that since I would be rearranging the cabling a bit anyway, I might make sure they are hooked up in the best manner.

Thanks in advance! I love the forum--I don't post much, since I often find answers here without having to--Thanks again!

 

[Hender]

The two hard drives should be on the same chain, and the two optical drives should be on a separate chain. Hard drives and optical drives should not be put on the same IDE connector if it can be avoided. It doesn't harm the drives, but it reduces performance.

 

[Lucky]

Since I have a similar questions, I'll ask of this:

Hard drives and optical drives should not be put on the same IDE connector if it can be avoided

What about when you want to copy CD's, for instance? Is it OK to have the source and destination CDRW on the same channel? I've only got one hard drive but have a zip drive and a CDRW and a DVD drive, and I dont know how to best arrange my devices.

 

[Accord99]

The most optimum cabling for should be:

IDE1:
Master IBM HD
Slave Yamaha CDRW

IDE 2:
Master Fujitsu HD
Slave Lite-On CD (btw, there should be no reason why it is not DMA capable, virtually all cd-roms from long before the 40X era have DMA capabilities)

Switch the two optical drives if you use the CDRW more than the CD

Advantages:

-Hard drives are on separate channels and therefore can run at max speed even when both are running at the same time
-Improved hd to hd copying
-Improved CD to CD copying
-By having the least used device (one of the optical drives) paired with the most used device (the IBM), the IBM faces less contention for the EIDE channel

The only major disadvantage I find with this setup is it can be difficult to cable properly.

 

[apriest]

Generally all ATA-100 devices (hard drives) should not be on the same channel as slower devices (DVD, CD-RW, Zip, etc.). Every now and then there is an exception to this rule. If you have two hard drives, the primary a 7200rpm, the secondary a 5400rpm and rarely used, and your DVD offers DMA support, you may get higher performance putting the primary drive and DVD on the primary channel and the slower drive and CD-RW on the secondary channel. As Accord99 said it would offer higher performance copying from DVD to CD or hard drive to hard drive. It would however slow down the primary drive overall. It all depends on what you will be doing the most. If you have a motherboard with RAID you can have lots of fun because you have 8 devices to play with!

 

[chrislong]

Interesting to get your ideas, thanks. The 5400 HD is rarely ever accessed--it's just sort of a relic. I may configure the CDR on my main HD and see how that goes. Seems like it might be better that way.

It is odd about the DMA issue--Win98SE has DMA unchecked in Device Manager for that drive--when I go to check it, it warns me that the CD-Rom doesn't support DMA, so I don't know what to think. That particular CD-Rom is the one that came with the box, back in 1999. The newer Yamaha CDR, however, was detected as supporting it. Be nice if they both were on the same page...