Upgrade Question about Nforce2 board...

[BlueWeasel]

I currently have the following:

Abit BE6-II MB with onboard ATA/66 controller
Maxtor 60gb HD on the Primary ATA/66
- - - - - - -
Pioneer DVD on primary IDE controller
Lite-on CDRW as master on secondary IDE
100mb Zip drive as slave on secondary IDE

One of the things I love about the BE6-II is the extra onboard ATA/66 that allows me to have 6 drives installed (2 on the ATA/66, 2 on the primary IDE, 2 on the secondary IDE).

However, I am looking at upgrading to an Nforce2 board and have decided between the Asus A7N8X or the Chaintech 7NJS. Both boards get good reviews from both Tom and AT. The Chaintech comes with alot of extras (rounded cables, front USB and sound connectors, etc.), but is approximately $50 more than the Asus. In addition, the Chaintech board also has an extra ATA controller where the Asus only has the two ATA/33 controllers.

Even though its more than the Asus, I am leaning toward the CT board for the reasons mentioned above. While the CT is nice, I could do without some of the extra features.

However, let's assume I go with the Asus board. Let's also assume that configured my drives this way on the Asus board:

Primary ATA/133 Master: Maxtor 60gb HD
Primary ATA/133 Slave: 100mb Zip drive
Secondary ATA/133 Master: Pioneer DVD drive
Secondary ATA/133 Slave: Lite-on CDRW

Obviously, I am not concerned with performance of the DVD and CDRW drives. However, I am wondering if it would hurt to place the slower zip drive (PIO mode only) on the same channel as the Maxtor. I have always heard that placing a slower drive as the slave will negatively affect the performance of the master drive.

What are your recommendations?

 

[chizow]

I would go with the Asus and spend the extra $50 on a RAID add-in card (which are usually cheaper than $50). Now that most mobo makers are shifting from onboard IDE RAID in favor of SATA, this will give you flexibility in the future as well.

Other than that, I think the Asus is one of the 3 boards that has a confirmed PCI lock, which was a major consideration for me as an OCer. Not sure if the Chaintech is confirmed or not, check the AT mobo round-up to be sure.

As for different drive speeds on the same IDE ribbon, I don't think this is a huge deal unless you are simultaneously using both devices on that ribbon. IDE controllers have improved with each new chipset, so I don't think 2 different speed drives on the same ribbon will have any decreases in performance as long as only 1 drive is being used. If you are transferring data from the HDD to the Zip drive, transfer speeds will only be as fast as the write speed of the ZIP in any case. I know that 2 CD/DVD drives on the same ribbon can adversely affect performance (reading from 1 drive/burning to the other) at high speeds b/c the 40 channel ribbon can't handle all the data flowing from both drives w/out problems. Just set everything to "auto" in the BIOS and the IDE controller should take care of the rest.

Hope this helps,

Chiz

 

[BlueWeasel]

Thanks again Chizow....