setting up 2 HDDs and 2 cd writers

[Jeff]

I currently have 2 HDDs set as primary master and slave, and a cd writer as
secondary master. I've just bought an IDE dvd writer, and have heard that
it's not good to have the 2 cd/dvd drives on the same IDE bus. I thought i
would just set the dvd and cd writers up on the same cable as master and
slave. Is this a bad idea? What's the best way to set up all four devices
please?
Ta muchly

 

[Shep©]

I currently have 2 HDDs set as primary master and slave, and a cd writer as
secondary master. I've just bought an IDE dvd writer, and have heard that
it's not good to have the 2 cd/dvd drives on the same IDE bus. I thought i
would just set the dvd and cd writers up on the same cable as master and
slave. Is this a bad idea? What's the best way to set up all four devices
please?
Ta muchly

If you want the maximum speed for the drives then have them as slaves
to the master Hard drives e.g. on separate IDE ports.If you then burn
from CD to CD you will get maximum data transfers.If you are copying
large ISOs from a hard drive pick the CDR/DVD drive you will use the
most for this and have that on the opposite IDE port to the hard drive
you burn the ISO/Files from.

Here's the skinny on IDE ports.

If there is only 1 device on an IDE port it's called a,"Parent"
device.A parent device can read and write on the buss at the same time
thus have lower,"Wait-States" for data transactions e.g near full
speed within the confines of the PCI buss.

If there are 2 devices on an IDE chain they can both
become,"Child"devices if both those devices are accessed at the same
time.A Child device cannot read and write at the same time e.g each
one has to wait it's turn in data bursts for the other,this slows them
down and their efficiency is crippled in effect and can even be under
half the speed of the a correct setup.

Now here's the,"Myth Buster".Just having 2 devices physically on the
same IDE chain does,"Not" cripple either device's speed if only one of
them is being accessed because in effect if say Device A is being used
but device B is not being accessed Device A is totally unaffected and
really doesn't even know or care about device B at that time.

Real time example:
650 meg copying CD to CD on same channel/IDE with my old CDR/CD drives
can be over ten mins.With them on separate IDE chains around 4 mins

Many newer mother boards have more IDE ports now both SATA/PATA which
means you can set up devices so they never share and of course you can
also use USB devices so things have moved on a great deal form
the,"Old-Days" e.g a couple of years ago<grin> and of course for older
systems you can use PCI Add-on cards to add more IDE ports etc.

HTH

 

[kony]

I currently have 2 HDDs set as primary master and slave, and a cd writer as
secondary master. I've just bought an IDE dvd writer, and have heard that
it's not good to have the 2 cd/dvd drives on the same IDE bus.

It's not "bad" per se either.

I thought i
would just set the dvd and cd writers up on the same cable as master and
slave. Is this a bad idea? What's the best way to set up all four devices
please?
Ta muchly

Because of IDT (Independant Device Timing) present on any
board made in the last (decade or so), all devices should
run at the max speed supported by the motherboard - that is
not at issue.

The issue is which devices you'd copy to/fro simultaneously,
most often, or in a most time-critical way. Put those
drives on opposite cables, doesn't matter whether master or
slave. If you can't decide then you might consider just
leaving the two HDDs on one cable and the two opticals on
the other - as it makes cable routing easier, then if that
presents a problem in use, change them at that point.