Would adding 5400 drive to ATA100 IDE slow it down?

[Overman]

Hey all...I just found an old 5400 rpm drive and I wanted to put it in my new system. I have a CD-Drive and a DVD-Drive on IDE 2, and a 7200 rmp HD on IDE1 (using ATA-100 cable). If I put this old drive on the same IDE cable as my HD, would that slow down the performance of my 7200 rpm drive?
Would it affect any other performance?

I wanted to throw it on just as a kinda backup drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!


Overman

 

[bocamojo]

No, it won't affect your 7200 RPM drive at all. Even considering burst transfer rates of 30-50MB per sec on your 7200RPM drive, you've still got a whole lot of bandwidth to work with on your ATA100 bus (50-70MB per sec, approximately). Most good 7200RPM drives can sustain max speeds of 25-35MBPS.... I would, however, make sure I had a top quality ATA100 cable specifically designed for ATA100 communications. You can pick one up at newegg.com for about 10 bucks (teflon coated).

 

[Overman]

Thanks for the reply bocamojo.  I do have a decent ATA-100 Cable.  So you are saying that I won't see any system degradation (performance wise) putting in that hard drive?

Another Question: 

Why have I heard that you aren't supposed to put a CD Drive on the same IDE cable as a hard drive?  Is it because the CD-Rom takes up too much "bandwidth" of the ATA-100 cable that the 7200 HD would not be able to fully use the ATA-100 cable to transfer data? 

Thanks again!