Anderton Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 Hey expert people -- My motherboard has the standard two channels for going to hard drives and such. Is it better to set them up like this: 1 C: drive (master), D: CD or DVD drive (slave) 2 E: data drive (master), F: data drive (slave) or like this: 1 C: drive (master), E: data drive (slave) 2 D: CD or DVD drive (master), F: drive (slave) Yr opinions, please! Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
videoeditor1 Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 Originally posted by Anderton: Hey expert people -- My motherboard has the standard two channels for going to hard drives and such. Is it better to set them up like this: 1 C: drive (master), D: CD or DVD drive (slave) 2 E: data drive (master), F: data drive (slave) or like this: 1 C: drive (master), E: data drive (slave) 2 D: CD or DVD drive (master), F: drive (slave) Yr opinions, please!Put the optical drives on the same IDE bus (your 2nd proposed config); as an IDE bus will (typically) move data as fast as the slowest device(s) on the bus. NYC Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlampson Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 Craig, Drew is right, however, are you sure your motherboard does not have SATA connectors? If so, there are inexpensive adapters to convert SATA to IDE. This would let you put all of your devices on seperate channels. Your motherboard documentation should have information about this, otherwise you can post your mainboard's model number and let us do the digging. One thing to ask if this is even an option for you, however, it does take very little reconfiguration within Windows (I believe you said you used XP) and many here, including myself, would be happy to assist. John ----------- John\'s Songs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanmass Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Config 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 When last I investigated this, the consensus seemed to be that the ideal situation is to have your system/programs disk as master on channel one, your audio drive as master on channel two. Some people seemed to feel that the optical drive should then go as the slave on channel one since program access is generally less speed-critical than audio-data access (and having anything on a slave channel will slow down the master). Obviously, the ideal way (from some points of view) is to have the optical (and tertiary HD if you've got one) on a separate controller in the IDE buss. (Now, if your MB has an older, lower-speed controller, you would probably want to buy a SATA controller and drive for your audio and put that drive on the new controller.) bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bbach1 Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Craig, one thing I found out by playing around is that if you intend on doing a massive copy directly from one hd to the other, you may want them on different channels. If you have them as master and slave on the same channel, the copied files must first be stored in memory and then copied because a lot of computer drive channels do not allow direct transfer. You won't damage anything. Just hook it up the way you feel is best and see how it functions. You can easily swap them around. That being said, the computer I have tried this on is 5 years old and I am upgrading and would not be surprised if that has been changed. bbach Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Good point from cwfno. I believe that's still the case. bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug osborne Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 It mattered 5 years ago. It doesn't matter with new, faster PCI bus technology. Doug Osborne Music on Bandcamp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 FWIW, I have my hard disks on the Primary as master / slave, and my optical drives (CD-RW and DVD+/-RW) on the Secondary as master / slave. Seems to work best for me. You can always add a controller card such as the Promise PCI controller to your setup and get everything on its own interface, but I don't really see a speed / track count increase. Since my mobo has SATA capabilities, I'll probably go that way in the future... but for now, the setup I described (plus external firewire drives - on a seperate controller from my audio interfaces) seems to be working out just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted August 9, 2004 Author Share Posted August 9, 2004 Thanks everybody! As I always say, you can find the answer to anything on SSS Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Doe Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Keep in mind that I'm an IT guy and biased. Ctrlr 1: 160g HDD, CD burner Ctrlr 2: 160g HDD, CD/DVD player Mirror the 160's to each other and configure as a C boot (10g) drive and a D data drive (150g). OTOH, SATA is the bomb. All my new servers use that. jon No signature required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philbo_Tangent Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 I believe that the 'CD on the 2nd IDE Channel' was valid back when CD drives were quite a bit slower. If you're using a super fast CD drive, it may not going to matter much whether it shares an IDE channel with a hard drive. The way to find out if it matters for your setup: (for Windows): With ONLY the hard drive connected to the primary channel, Look in the device manager for the primary IDE channel properties, advanced settings tab. It'll say something like 'Ultra DMA Mode 5'. Do the same for the Secondary IDE channel, with ONLY the CD drive connected. If it reads out a lower DMA mode number than the hard drive, leave the CD drive on a separate channel so it won't slow down hard drive access. Phil Tangent Studios http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Tangent2/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Excellent point Phil. I have Ultra DMA mode 5 on my HDD's and my CD drive (a 40X Sony) is a Ultra DMA mode 4 (if memory serves) - so I keep the HDD's on the primary and the opticals on the secondary. I don't think I'd need to do that if both my optical drives were DMA mode 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Doe Posted August 9, 2004 Share Posted August 9, 2004 Decide whether you value speed or fault tolerance more. No signature required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 Originally posted by Jon Doe: SATA is the bomb. All my new servers use that. jonYou can say that again, Mr. Garrison ! SATA rulez, and it's cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted August 10, 2004 Author Share Posted August 10, 2004 Where can I find out more about SATA? Sounds like something work talking about in EQ. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soundscape Studios. Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 http://www.serialata.org/ This should be more than enough info, Craig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 Speaking about things for EQ, Craig, did you get that email I sent you the other day about that idea I had? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 According to an article in Tom's Hardware Guide: We've been waiting and waiting. By the end of last year more than two thirds of all motherboards sold featured Serial-ATA connectors - however, the corresponding drives available on the market had scarcely increased at all. In the spring of this year, hard drive makers were still only delivering small quantities, and manufacturers of optical drives often seemed to be shrugging their shoulders... In fact, Serial ATA does not entail any extra performance in and of itself - contrary to what is often propagated in innumerable marketing brochures. At the current maximum 150 MB/s, only the interface itself offers a good deal more bandwidth than UltraATA at 133 or 100 MB/s. But there are still no drives that can approach the maximum bandwidths of the UltraATA standard. Anyone solely interested in fast transfer speeds can continue to do without Serial ATA - unless you're dealing with a Western Digital hard drive with 10,000 rpm. Up to now, the advantages of Serial ATA lie above all in uncomplicated cabling: the plug is reverse-polarity protected and the annoyance of configuring the master/slave on a single channel is a thing of the past, as exactly one drive is connected per SATA port. Plus, the sea of cables in the case is visibly reduced, which makes it easier to tell what's going on and aids airflow. Subsequent generations of Serial ATA will not only be able to handle up to 300 MB/s per port, but will also feature what is known as Command Queuing. Assuming there is support for your controller and driver, a single device can rearrange numerous incoming data requests in a way that is optimal for its internal setup (disk or magnetic disk). The technology makes sense for optical drives, too, as it lets you avoid any unnecessary vibrations in the lens system and fluctuations in latency times due to rotation. "...exactly one drive is connected per SATA port..." A real why-didn't-I-think-of-that idea, huh? bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt.Hepworth Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 My new workstation (Athlon 64) utilizes IDE and SATA IDE 1 - OS Drive and Primary Audio Drive IDE 2 - Pullout Secondary Audio Drive and DVD/RW Drive SATA 1 - Audio Backup Drive (very fast transfers) I will also run audio from my SATA drive directly and it's very fast and convenient. I will be adding another SATA drive shortly, and I'll be doing a good share of audio from it. No matter how good something is, there will always be someone blasting away on a forum somewhere about how much they hate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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