Recommend an IDE setup for me....

[ors]

hey! don't really know where to post this.. but here goes..

i just recently bought a cd-rw drive and i really don't know where to put it to maximize performance... my mobo supports 2 ide channels and i have 3 devices to plug into it: a hard drive, cd-rom, cd-rw drive...

they support the following transfer rates:

hard drive: ATA/133
cd-rom: DMA MW-2
cd-rw: ATA/33

i'm using a D850MD RDRAM P4 board which uses the ICH2

should i:

1. primary master: hd
secondary master: cd-rw
secondary slave: cd-rom

2. primary master: hd
secondary master: cd-rom
secondary slave: cd-rw

3. primary master: hd
primary slave: cd-rom
secondary master: cd-rw


well what do you think? because isn't it that the transfer rate will match the slower drive if i mix a faster one with a slower one??

e.g. if i put the hd and cd-rw on one channel my hd transfer rate will go down to ata/33 because that's the fastest my cd-rw drive supports???

thanks for any help your can provide... i know this might seam trivial but i get really obssesive complusive when it comes to these things...

 

[kherman]

I would put the HD on it's own channel.
Your options 1 and 2 are preferred. I wouldn''t do option 3.

well what do you think? because isn't it that the transfer rate will match the slower drive if i mix a faster one with a slower one??

I've been out of it a while (years actually) and people now say that the channels can change their transfer rates on the fly, therefore making drive position/optimization a thing of the past(or at least something to place a little less concern on). Atleast for new motherboards. I havn't verified this yet. Can anyone post a link stating htat transfer rates can change on the fly now. THANX!

Anyways, I think most would agree that setups 1 and 2 are the best solutions. I don't think there is a preferred master/slave arrangement between your CR-ROM and CD-RW drives.

 

[vetteguy]

I agree...put the hard drive on its own channel.

 

[microAmp]

Option 3.

3. primary master: hd
primary slave: cd-rom
secondary master: cd-rw

If you install anything to the HDD, use the CD-RW. When buring from HDD to CD-RW it will be optimal speed. When burning backups from CD-ROM to CD-RW it will be optimal speed.

The only draw back would be if you are playing on a half install game and leave the game on the CDROM, it'll then slow down the overall performace.

 

[CheungMoKee]

i totally agree with motoamd ... and u can also copy cd disks on the fly if each cd rom is on different channels

CheungMoKee