What's my best IDE configuration?

[senior guy]

Up to now, I've had an ATA66 HD as my primary master and my CD-ROM as my primary slave. My CD-RW was my secondary master.

Now, I just got a bigger and faster ATA100 HD that I want to use IN ADDITION TO my ATA66 drive (I have no problem reloading/moving the software). What is the best way for me to set up the 4 IDE devices? What should I know about ATA100 cables vs. ATA66 cables when doing this?

Thanks for your help!

 

[senior guy]

I've got to believe that this got "buried" - I'm sure lots of you have the answers I need. :Q

 

[Tired of the Bull]

ATA 66 and ATA 100 cables are the same.

Does your MB support ATA 100? If so set it up with the ATA 100 HDD as PRI Master, CD as PRI Slave and ATA 66 HDD as SEC Master with CDRW as SEC Slave. You can reverse the drives on the secondary if you wish.

Now if your MB doesn't support ATA 100 check performance of each drive and if there is no substantial difference (there might not be) then put the one already loaded on the PRI to save having to reload everything.

 

[bacillus]

<< What should I know about ATA100 cables vs. ATA66 cables when doing this? >>


they are essentially the same!



<< , I just got a bigger and faster ATA100 HD that I want to use IN ADDITION TO my ATA66 drive >>


do you want to use the new drive as your boot drive?

unless you have more than 2 ide channels on your m/board, then you're best putting both hdds on the primary ide channel &amp; the burner &amp; cd drive on secondary ide with the burner as master!

 

[Motero]

I agree with bacillus. Put your hard drives on your primary (ata 100 master, ata 66 slave), then put your cdrw and cdrom on secondary (cdrw master, cdrom slave)

 

[ElFenix]

i think it depends more on what you're going to transfer from where. if you're copying CDs, you don't want the burner on the same channel as the reader. if you're burning from a hard drive more often, you don't want those on the same channel. and if you're copying stuff between hard drives you don't want those on the same channel. my advice is go pick up an ata 66 card and give each device its own channel. thats what i've done.

 

[IntelConvert]

Even if your mobo doesn't support ata100, chances are the new ata100 HDD is much faster than your ata66 HDD (probably 7200rpm vs. 5400rpm plus faster access times). If that's the case, it will be worth your while to make the ata100 HDD drive c: as that would speed up Windows operations incl. virtual memory (as well as all other programs residing on the new drive). So connect the ata100 HDD as the primary master for sure.

Presuming that you will most often be burning from your new ata100 HDD to the CD-RW and sometimes copying from CD-ROM to CD-RW, I recommend connecting the CD-ROM as the primary slave. Then connect your old ata66 HDD and the CD-RW on the secondary IDE channel (I don't really think it will make much difference which one is connected to the primary or secondary).

Good luck!

 

[Noriaki]

If you put an ATA100 hard drive with a PIOmode4 CD Drive the hard drive will still operate at ATA100. IDE can now switch between modes fairly effectively.

What it can not do effectively is comminicate with two devices on the same channel at the same time.

So I would split the devices trying to pair off what you will use most.

I would go:
PM: Main Hard drive
PS: CDRW
SM: Second Hard drive
SS: CDROM

This way,
- Your CDROM and CDRW are on different channels so you can copy CD to CD.
- Your CDRW is on a different channel from you 2nd hard drive which in my case would be my &quot;data&quot; drive, so most likely the source of most of my HDD to CDRW burns
- Your CDROM would be on a different channel from your main hard drive, since most games will probably be installed on the main, and need a CDROM you'll use those two while playing games. Your CDRW and 2nd HDD will probably be idle during games.

Well that's how I'd personally do it, but I've made some assumptions that might not apply to you. Just keep in mind it doesn't matter if you mix modes, but it can't &quot;talk&quot; to both devices at once effectively, and try to decide from there.

(For example I have a CDROM and a DVDROM on the same chain, if I'm playing a DVD and I put in a CD the CD's Autoplay will disrupt the DVD)

Edit: Of course you could just get a Promise ATA100 card and make all 4 masters (that's sort of what I did, I actually have a Promise card becuase I have 6 devices...but it makes my two hard drives, CDRW and DVD rom all masters which is good).

 

[SonOfZeuz]

I second Noriaki's cofiguration, just make sure DMA is enabled for all drives.

 

[forouza1]

Actually, I don't exactly agree with the rest, You don't want your secondary slave to house the cdrom and cdrw because if you try real time writing or copy (w/o copying to hard disk first) from one drive to another you'll get poor performance/incompatibility issues. Here is my suggestion

Primary
Master: Whichever harddrive is your faster one.
Slave: CDROM

Secondary
Master: CDRW
Slave: Your Slower harddrive.

I believe you will get better performance/compatibility doing it this way even if you were to write from your slower HD to CDRW.

That's just my take.

Good luck

 

[forouza1]

sorry noriaski, didn't read your post. My suggestion is slightly differenct but it all depends on which HD your going to write to/from.

 

[Quickfingerz]

either way, you DO NOT want the two hard drives on the same channel. That'll be a big waste.

 

[senior guy]

Got it! Thanks to all...

 

[drees]

For the fastest operation when using all of your drives, you should shell out a few bucks and buy a Promise ATA100 controller.

IDE doesn't perform well if you have to talk to two drives on on cable, so get another controller so that you'll only have one drive per cable and all drives can be masters.

You can pick up a Promise ATA100 controller for only $35, so it's pretty cheap!

 

[senior guy]

When you add an IDE controller card, I presume that the mobo's IDE (Primary and Secondary) remain unchanged and the IDE card's connectors become the 3rd and 4th IDE channels. Is that correct, and is that recognized automatically by the system when you next boot-up?

 

[Noriaki]

Ah yeah forouza1, both my hard drives are IBM 75GXPs, so I don't really have a fast and slow drive I sorta forgot about that...your config would probably be a bit better if he was using his main drive as his burning source drive.

 

[ElFenix]

yeah, it boots, finds the stuff on the onboard IDE, then finds the stuff on the card's IDE, then keeps booting the rest of the way. everything is found automagically.
i'm running
maxtor plus 40 promise primary master (boot)
zip cd 12x burner promise secondary master
48x reader on board primary master
maxtor plus 40 on board secondary master

the hard drives aren't both on the promise card because they don't like having two maxtors for some reason.

 

[senior guy]

That's pretty much a wrap.

Thanks again!

 

[rigmah]

Dont know if anyone mentioned this but never put a cdrom and hard drive on the same IDE port (like on the same IDE ribbon)

The speed of the hard drive runs alot faster than the cdrom but when you put it on the same cable, it slows down your hard drive speed.

rigmah

 

[Noriaki]

<< The speed of the hard drive runs alot faster than the cdrom but when you put it on the same cable, it slows down your hard drive speed. >>

This is not true. This used to be the case with older IDE controllers. I'm not sure why but most people seem to think this is still the case, it is not.

On anything relatively new this is not a problem, the Master and Slave can run at different speeds and the slower won't slow down the faster.