Setup question

[Allanon]

I cant remember for the life of me..

I have a Raptor, backup ATA HD, DVD ROM, CDRW

Is there a best way to assign these master/slave, IDE1/2 channels? Thanks, Mark

 

[ketox]

Personally I avoid putting 2 optical drives or 2 hard drives on the same cable.

I would do this:
IDE1 Master: Raptor
IDE1 Slave: DVD-ROM
IDE2 Master: ATA HD
IDE2 Slave CD-RW

 

[E4g1e]

Personally I avoid putting 2 optical drives or 2 hard drives on the same cable.

I would do this:
IDE1 Master: Raptor
IDE1 Slave: DVD-ROM
IDE2 Master: ATA HD
IDE2 Slave CD-RW

In this specific case, the original poster has a WD Raptor hard drive. Since the Raptor is an SATA-only (Serial ATA only) hard drive, and the current implementation of SATA only permits one device per channel, then the Raptor will always be on its own cable no matter what.

As for the three IDE devices, the IDE hard drive (which would then be used as a mere storage device) should be set as Master and connected to the primary IDE channel (but make sure the system's BIOS is set so that it won't boot from IDE-0 or whatever the first hard drive on the regular IDE channels is detected). The correct setup for the two optical drives depends on the optical drives themselves: If a particular CD or DVD burner doesn't like being all by itself on its own IDE channel, then I'd recommend slaving it with the non-booting IDE hard drive on the Primary IDE channel, and connecting the DVD-ROM drive as Master all by itself on its own Secondary IDE channel.

 

[E4g1e]

(Message Deleted)

 

[Ice Czar]

Optimizing Physical Configuration
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

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 > As the Disc Spins @ Lost Circuits


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

however if possible it is ideal
(for data integrity if nothing else)
to have each device as a master on its own channel

whenever possible consider from what source to what target the large files are being transfer on a regular basis,
and try to adapt your physical configuration to accommodate that

From the Partitioning and Optimizing Tutorial (still a work in progresss) in the Data Storage FAQ

of course the SATA is on its own port

 

[E4g1e]

Good point there. However, in the original poster's case, only three IDE/ATAPI drives would be involved here - the backup ATA HD, the DVD-ROM and the CD-RW drives. The Raptor, being an SATA-only drive, will always be all by itself on its own primary SATA channel (the secondary SATA channel would be unused). There is no IDE-based (ATA100) Raptor drive on the market.

Under this condition, then, the recommended configuration will depend on the optical drives themselves. Some CD-RW drives don't like to be all by itself on its own IDE channel; thus, they must either be slaved to another ATA(PI) drive on the same IDE channel or have another ATAPI device slaved to any of those drives.

 

[Allanon]

More info .. LiteOn 52x CDRW, Toshiba 16x DVD

 

[E4g1e]

Hmmm...

I have an older 8x version of the Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, and an Aopen 52x24x52 CD-RW drive. Though both drives are nominally ATA33 devices, whenever I tried connecting CD-RW as master and DVD-ROM as slave on the same secondary channel, it somehow forced the entire Secondary IDE channel to operate in PIO-only mode under Windows XP. Reversing the Master/Slave assignments fixed the problem.

 

[ameoba]

a) where do you plan on burning from? Files on HDD? Disk-to-disk copies? Both?

b) When you use the DVD, do you often copy files to the HDD from it, or are you just watching movies & the like?



The whole point is to minimize the ammount of data that needs to be transfered between (or simultanious transfers) devices on the same IDE chain; this can't really be done without knowing how you use your computer. For me, I'd have the HDD & DVD on one chain & the CDRW on the other

 

[Allanon]

I usually use the DVD drive as my main drive, playing cds, games, and as the source for copying cds (rarely)

The CDRW is usually just for burning a few files and occassionally, making backup cds