use of IDE controllers

ronin47 · n00b Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Location: Australia

Heres the thing. I have a setup as follows:
2x 80Gb hard drive
1x CDRW
1x DVD
Is it a bad idea to have the hard drives on the same IDE controller and the CDRW + DVD on the other? The second hard drive is pretty much used to back up the first, the CDRW to burn and the DVD to view DVD’s (obviously).

If it is a bad idea could can you tell me why and how would you do it.

maca · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 2:01 am Post subject:

If you are burning on the fly then IM pretty sure to avoid buffer under-runs its better to have them on seperate controlers. Im not sure about coping disk to disk. Its prolly better to seperate the disks and burner to be on the safe side ... Ie. burner on a seperate controller to the drive you are burning from ..if possible.
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jesterspet · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 2:11 am Post subject:

As a rule of thumb, you want one device per IDE controller. This avoids may of the issues you may (or may not) have heard/seen/dreamed up.

When you have more than 2 IDE devices, then you want to take a few things into account.

When you add a second device to a channel, the channel will only be as fast as the slowest drive on the chain (whether or not it is in use). This means that if you mix drive types (CDROM + HD) the slowest drive (CDROM) will be setting the maximum speed.
Even though CDROM & DVD drives are getting faster, they are still a far cry from the speeds of even the slowest hard drive.

NOTE: this does not apply to SATA drives

When burning CD's, idealy you will want your source drive and your destination drive on seperate channels to avoid buffer under runs, just as Maca had previously stated. In your case, unless you are burning from your DVD Drive to your CDRW, you should not run into this issue, as the source drive would be one of your hard drives.

If I were in your position, I would leave your set up alone, with the HD's on one controller, and the CDRW & DVD-ROM on the other. Unless you run into isses that are hardware related, or someone has a very complelling reason for you to re-evaluate your current setup, Don't change a thing.
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ronin47 · n00b Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Location: Australia

Great post....thanks