How do you like your IDE channels?

[jamezzz122]

Well I have a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, and HDD and have two channels to put them on.

I was thinking of having the DVD-ROM and master and CD-RW as slave on the primary channel. And just have the HDD on the secondary channel as master.

How would you set this up? Well for best performance...

 

[Great_Melinko]

the hard drive should be on the primary channel as master and the cdrw/dvdrom should be on the secondary with one set as slave and one as master

 

[Sean]

Originally posted by jamezzz122
Well I have a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, and HDD and have two channels to put them on.

I was thinking of having the DVD-ROM and master and CD-RW as slave on the primary channel. And just have the HDD on the secondary channel as master.

How would you set this up? Well for best performance...

Harddrive on Primary Channel as Master (or CS)

CDRW as Master on the Secondary Channel, and the DVD-ROM as Slave on the Secondary Channel.

Cheers,

 

[jagec]

I like my IDE channels like this:

CDRW as master on CH #1
DVDROM as master on CH #2

HDD1 as master on PC133 controller
HDD2 as master on PC133 controller

 

[BlindedByScience]

My #1 system is sigged;

IDE0 = WD#1 (boot) as master, WD#2 as slave
IDE1 = Toshiba DVD-ROM as master, LiteON CDRW as slave

Never an issue, never a coaster....very fast, NP.

B.B.S.

 

[KevC]

DVDROM and HDD on one channel;
CDRW on the other.

Though I'd rather have DVDROM on one, CDRW on the other, and HDD on SATA

 

[Entimann]

why should you put the harddrive on the primary channel?

 

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by jamezzz122
How do you like your IDE channels?

With Barbeque sauce and a side of slaw

depends, performance for what?

Optimizing Physical Configuration
two devices being on the same channel there are a few considerations

IDE\ATA\ATAPI is sequential
meaning first the HDD reads a part of the file until the HDD's Cache is full then writes it to the Second HDD,
then that repeats each taking its own turn
then its unlikely its reading the file from a single location, its probably fragmented, and when it writing it, its also writing it to multiple locations, that introduces the latency and access times of both drives into it

so its not a consistent smooth operation, but rather an on again off again utilization pattern for most desktop access, you can veiw your pattern with this
BusTrace IDE/ATAPI Bus Utilization Monitor Freeware

if your going to be transfering alot of data inbetween two HDDs on a regular basis, its best if they are on their own channels, writing from a HDD to a Optical drive is alot better, the optical can only deal with a maximum of 33MB/s Burst (UDMA mode2) whereas the HDD is probably at UDMA mode5 100MB/s burst (50>30MB/s Sustained), in short the sequential issues arent enought to effect the burn speed with modern software (and reads arent really an issue either) both cant saturate the bus

of course those are just interface speeds and are not the sole consideration of HDD performance

review this thread and the links it contains
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=740512

there is a myth about putting optical drives on the same channel as HDDs, it is just that a myth, but it keeps getting reinforced by the way Windows deals with ATA\ATAPI issues
basically with Independent Device Timing two devices (master\slave) both transfer their data at their own highest speed, but, they both either have to be PIO (which is glacially slow) or UDMA, if one defaults to PIO because of some issue, Windows will default the other as well. There was a time when CDROMs where only PIO, and HDDs where DMA, for that period of history you didnt want to share a channel, but modern opticals are UDMA mode2 so there is rarely any issue

some of the reasons a device might default to PIO
DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP


consider this, you rarely employ the opticals (unlesss your using it as a stereo or DVD entertainment center) but if for instance your employing aps that eat RAM (graphics) you might see a considerable performance boost by employing multiple pagefiles, which to properly work must be on opposite channels
and review Virtual Memory in Windows XP @ aumha

Originally posted by Entimann
why should you put the harddrive on the primary channel?

a very good question
the BIOS see the Master Device (if its a HDD) on the Primary IDE Channel first when it scans for a boot sector

roughly the PATA scan order is
-- Primary Master primary partition
-- Primary Slave primary partition
-- Secondary Master primary partition
-- Secondary Slave primary partition
-- Removable media (CD-ROM) or other software driven devices with drive letters

SATA complicates this and there is often a Bus Manager or other option in the BIOS to enable a device attached to an onboard SATA capable chipset to be the first boot device (or first scanned)
if you boot to an IDE RAID array on a card or on the motherboard the boot order in the BIOS must be set to SCSI (they enmploy SCSI drivers), same applies to any real SCSI device(s), in addition if there are multiple cards the device that will be first seen will be determined by the PIRQ, roughly the higher up the card in the PCI slot the greater its PIRQ priority

 

[Snugglebear]

I prefer mine disabled in the bios to free up IRQs for SCSI controllers. But if I have to have a machine with IDE, then preferrably HDDs on the primary controller and opticals on the secondary. Ease of cabling is the goal for me, and the HDD cages are always just a little too far from the 5 1/4 bays to make comingling work well.