HDD and CD-Rom on same channel?

[Joker47]

I have my HDD and CD-RW as Master and Slave on the Primary channel and
no devices on the Secondary channel.

I have read that this setup may cause a degradation of the data
transfer rate of the faster device (the HDD) to that of the slower
device (the CD-RW) since they're both on the same channel.

Then again, I've also read that although this may have been true years
ago with the older chipsets, it is no longer valid and that, in fact,
two devices on the same channel will have data transfer rates
independant of each other, i.e, the faster device is unaffected by the
slower device.

Anyone know the actual correct information on this? Thanks.

 

[Bob]

I have my HDD and CD-RW as Master and Slave on the Primary channel and
no devices on the Secondary channel.

I have read that this setup may cause a degradation of the data
transfer rate of the faster device (the HDD) to that of the slower
device (the CD-RW) since they're both on the same channel.

Then again, I've also read that although this may have been true years
ago with the older chipsets, it is no longer valid and that, in fact,
two devices on the same channel will have data transfer rates
independant of each other, i.e, the faster device is unaffected by the
slower device.

Anyone know the actual correct information on this? Thanks.

I found that I get better BIOS recognition if I make my NEC 3540 the
secondary master. Before when I had it the secondary slave, with a
removable hard drive bay on the secondary master, the BIOS had a
difficult time recognizing it. Now it recognizes it every time
regardless of what I do, like putting a disc in during POST.

I have never seen any transfer speed issue but your setup may be
different. The only way you will be able to convince yourself about
the transfer issue is to perform an experiment transferring the same
content with different configurations.


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[kony]

I have my HDD and CD-RW as Master and Slave on the Primary channel and
no devices on the Secondary channel.

I have read that this setup may cause a degradation of the data
transfer rate of the faster device (the HDD) to that of the slower
device (the CD-RW) since they're both on the same channel.

No, completely untrue.

Then again, I've also read that although this may have been true years
ago with the older chipsets, it is no longer valid and that, in fact,
two devices on the same channel will have data transfer rates
independant of each other, i.e, the faster device is unaffected by the
slower device.

It has not been true for 10 years. Any (even remotely)
modern technology including the board and drives have long
since overcome this issue.

Anyone know the actual correct information on this? Thanks.

The other issue is that both devices on same IDE channel
cannot do I/O simultaneously. For that reason, the optimal
arrangement would be to put each alone on an IDE channel
since you have another available. However, in many uses the
potential performance benefit is not needed, it would
typically require a fairly aggressive parallel use of the
HDD for other tasks while simultaneously trying to burn data
from same HDD.

 

[Joker47]

Kony,

Thanks for the info. Just for grins and giggles, I'm going to route
the CD-RW to the secondary IDE channel and see if I can notice any
improvement in my HDD access speed. My guess is that I probably won't,
or that even if there is an improvement, it will be quite negligible.

 

[DaveW]

They DO affect each other's speeds. You should have the harddrive on the
primary IDE channel and the CD-ROM on the secondary IDE channel.