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Two Hdds on same ide cable, performance question

N

Nemmeh

Senior member
Hey everyone, need a little input from some people here as to whether or not I should change my cable configuration.

I've got a EPOX 8KHA+ motherboard, just ATA100 with 2 Hdds.

(1) WD 80gb 8mb 7200rpm hdd and (1) Maxtor 8mb 80gb hdd 7200rpm, they are both on IDE1.

On IDE2, I've only got 1 drive which is a Teac 40x cdrw.

My question is.. would it perform better if I switched over one of the hdds to the cable the cdrw is on? Rather than having them both on the same cable? Would it improve performance when I'm using both drives, for example doing tasks such as raring and unraring, etc..
 
It would make no noticeable difference except the controller sharing the CDRW might then underperform to match the slower unit. Never heard of "raring" and "unraring." Please define. As far as I have ever observed, only one drive runs at a time even on the same controller. Switching is pretty fast.
 
Ok it's really simple just look at how you use the devices.

Assuming your usage is basically as follows:
i) Copying between drives.
ii) Install from CDROM to Primary Master and/or DAE form CDROM to Primary Master
iii) Burn from Primary Master to CDROM.

Then the best setup is:

Primary Master - Fastest HD (Everyday Apps, OS, etc....)
Primary Slave - None
Secondary Master - Other HD (infrequently used apps, archive, media library, backup, etc....)
Secondary Slave - CDROM

Note: If your CDROM uses PIO mode then you should not put a HD on the same cable as the HD will also be forced to run in PIO mode. If your CDROM runs in any DMA mode then it will be fine having a HD on the same channel (since most modern motherboards support Independant Device Timing).

Thorin
 
Thanks for the replies..

I think I'll just leave it set to how it is configured currently.
Below is my current dma settings for the drives.

IDE1
WD 80gb - DMA Mode 5
Maxtor 80gb - DMA Mode 5

IDE2
CDRW - DMA Mode 2

Thanks again.
 
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