How best to install 2 DVD burners on one PC

[Pete]

Hi

I have a typical P4 2.6 system with 2 IDE connectors on my motherboard. I
have 2 DVD burners and 1 IDE hard disk (main system drive) on my machine.
All the drives are installed and working OK but I get problems with access
speeds / bandwidth when I use the burner that is on the same channel as the
hard disk.

I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that the
burners are on separate IDE channels. I happen to have an old ABIT hot rod
100 raid controller card and was going to hook the main IDE drive up to this
so that I could have the burners connected as masters on each of the ide
channels on the motherboard and no secondary devices connected at all.

Does this make sense?

Do I need to change any bios settings to set the abit raid PCI card up as a
master device?

Is there a better way of doing this?

Will the Abit hot rod 100 card be OK?

Will accessing my prmary hard disk through the Abit card degrade hard disk
access speeds?

Will using a card like the Abit raid controller on the PCI bus degrade other
PCI or AGP devices because it may be a bandwidth hog?

Please feel free to respond to any or all of the points i have raised.

Any other advice / issues?

Thanks

Pete

 

[Mike Walsh]

Hi

I have a typical P4 2.6 system with 2 IDE connectors on my motherboard. I
have 2 DVD burners and 1 IDE hard disk (main system drive) on my machine.
All the drives are installed and working OK but I get problems with access
speeds / bandwidth when I use the burner that is on the same channel as the
hard disk.

I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that the
burners are on separate IDE channels. I happen to have an old ABIT hot rod
100 raid controller card and was going to hook the main IDE drive up to this
so that I could have the burners connected as masters on each of the ide
channels on the motherboard and no secondary devices connected at all.

Does this make sense?

This was true before dual FIFO buffers on IDE ports. It should not be necessary on your system.

Do I need to change any bios settings to set the abit raid PCI card up as a
master device?

Configure the Abit BIOS to disable RAID. Set the system BIOS to boot from SCSI. PCI ATA cards emulate SCSI.

Is there a better way of doing this?
No.

Will the Abit hot rod 100 card be OK?

Should be OK.

Will accessing my prmary hard disk through the Abit card degrade hard disk
access speeds?

I have used only Promise ATA cards, which work well with hard drives and have slightly better performance than on board PATA ports.

Will using a card like the Abit raid controller on the PCI bus degrade other
PCI or AGP devices because it may be a bandwidth hog?

It will not affect AGP at all. On board PATA ports typically connect through the PCI bus, so the hard drive will use PCI bandwidth either way.

Please feel free to respond to any or all of the points i have raised.

Any other advice / issues?

It should not be necessary to have each device on a different cable. You probably haves some other problem e.g. DMA not enabled on one or more devices.

 

[Citizen Bob]

I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that the
burners are on separate IDE channels.

What happens if two optical drives are on the same IDE channel?

I am having a problem with an NEC 3540 as Master and an LG CD-burner
as Slave, selected by CD.


--

Govt is an insult to human dignity. With or without govt,
you would have good people doing good things and evil
people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes govt. Govt is the root of all evil.

 

[Citizen Bob]

Configure the Abit BIOS to disable RAID.

I have a Microstar MB. How would I check to see if it was set for
RAID?


--

Govt is an insult to human dignity. With or without govt,
you would have good people doing good things and evil
people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes govt. Govt is the root of all evil.

 

[Pete]

This was true before dual FIFO buffers on IDE ports. It should not be
necessary on your system.


Configure the Abit BIOS to disable RAID. Set the system BIOS to boot from
SCSI. PCI ATA cards emulate SCSI.


Should be OK.


I have used only Promise ATA cards, which work well with hard drives and
have slightly better performance than on board PATA ports.


It will not affect AGP at all. On board PATA ports typically connect
through the PCI bus, so the hard drive will use PCI bandwidth either way.


It should not be necessary to have each device on a different cable. You
probably haves some other problem e.g. DMA not enabled on one or more
devices.

Hi Mike

My drives are configured as follows:

IDE channel 0: Primary device: seagate barracuda 120GB
IDE channel 0: Slave device: BENQ 1640 DVD Writer
IDE channel 1: Primary device: Lite-on SHM-165P6S DVD Writer

There are no device conflicts or problems shown in device manager
All drives have the very latest firmware
DMA seems to be turned on for all drives
I have deleted the disk controllers and drive and rebooted and nothing
changed.

The Lite-on drive
=================
Burns without problems

The Benq drive
==============
Reports using UDMA mode 2(33) PIO mode 4

Problems appear when burning or reading speeds start going past about 8X on
DVDs. It seems like the hard drive and the writer are fighting for bandwidth
or processor time. I have heard that burning at 16X can be too much even for
some high spec machines and assumed that this was the problem (trying to
read an image at 16x from the hard drive while simultaneously writing at 16x
down the same channel to the dvd writer)

I am no stranger to burning DVDs and have been building PCs for years so
normally know what I'm doing.

Thanks for the help

Pete

Here's some info from Nero info tool

Nero InfoTool 4.03

Drive Information
------------------
Drive : BENQ DVD DD DW1640
Type : DVD±R/RW DL Recorder
Firmware Version : BSRB
Buffer Size : 2 MB
Date : ?
Serial Number : 9JB5U150F251942198PP
Vendor Specific : 9JB5U150F251942198PP
Drive Letter : F:\
Location : 0:1
Mechanism : Tray
Read Speed : 48 X
Write Speed : 48 X

Read CD Text : Yes
Return C2 Pointers : No
Read CD-R : Yes
Read CD-RW : Yes
Read DVD-ROM : Yes
Read DVD-RAM : No
Read DVD-R : Yes
Read DVD-RW : Yes
Read DVD-R DL : Yes
Read DVD+R : Yes
Read DVD+RW : Yes
Read DVD+R DL : Yes
Read BD-ROM : No
Read BD-R : No
Read BD-RE : No
Read HD DVD-ROM : No
Read HD DVD-R : No
Read HD DVD-RW : No
Read HD-BURN : No
Read Digital Audio : Yes
Read CD+G : Yes
Read VideoCD : Yes

Write CD-R : Yes
Write CD-RW : Yes
Write DVD-R : Yes
Write DVD-RW : Yes
Write DVD-R DL : Yes
Write DVD+R : Yes
Write DVD+RW : Yes
Write DVD+R DL : Yes
Write DVD-RAM : No
Write BD-R : No
Write BD-RE : No
Write HD DVD-R : No
Write HD DVD-RW : No
Write HD-BURN-R : No
Write HD-BURN-RW : No
Buffer Underrun Protection : Yes
Mount Rainier : No
SolidBurn : Yes
Labelflash : No
Modes : Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW SAO 16, RAW
SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96

Region Protection Control : RPC II
Region : 2
Changes User : 4
Changes Vendor : 4

Disc Information (F:\)
-------------------
Type : no disc inserted


Drive Information
------------------
Drive : LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S
Type : DVD-RAM Recorder
Firmware Version : MS0P
Buffer Size : 2 MB
Date : 2006-06-07
Serial Number
Vendor Specific : 2006/06/07 17:12
Drive Letter : E:\
Location : 1:0
Mechanism : Tray
Read Speed : 48 X
Write Speed : 48 X

Read CD Text : Yes
Return C2 Pointers : Yes
Read CD-R : Yes
Read CD-RW : Yes
Read DVD-ROM : Yes
Read DVD-RAM : Yes
Read DVD-R : Yes
Read DVD-RW : Yes
Read DVD-R DL : Yes
Read DVD+R : Yes
Read DVD+RW : Yes
Read DVD+R DL : Yes
Read BD-ROM : No
Read BD-R : No
Read BD-RE : No
Read HD DVD-ROM : No
Read HD DVD-R : No
Read HD DVD-RW : No
Read HD-BURN : No
Read Digital Audio : Yes
Read CD+G : No
Read VideoCD : Yes

Write CD-R : Yes
Write CD-RW : Yes
Write DVD-R : Yes
Write DVD-RW : Yes
Write DVD-R DL : Yes
Write DVD+R : Yes
Write DVD+RW : Yes
Write DVD+R DL : Yes
Write DVD-RAM : Yes
Write BD-R : No
Write BD-RE : No
Write HD DVD-R : No
Write HD DVD-RW : No
Write HD-BURN-R : No
Write HD-BURN-RW : No
Buffer Underrun Protection : Yes
Mount Rainier : No
SolidBurn : No
Labelflash : No
Modes : Packet, TAO, DAO, SAO, RAW SAO, RAW DAO, RAW
SAO 16, RAW SAO 96, RAW DAO 16, RAW DAO 96

Region Protection Control : RPC II
Region : 2
Changes User : 4
Changes Vendor : 4

Disc Information (E:\)
-------------------
Type : no disc inserted


Interface Information
---------------------
Adapter 1
---------
Description : Primary IDE Channel

Driver
Description : System32\DRIVERS\atapi.sys
Company : Microsoft Corporation
Version : 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)
Description : IDE/ATAPI Port Driver

Attached Devices
Description : Master: ST3120023A
Type : Disk Drive
DMA : On
Description : Slave: BENQ DVD DD DW1640
Type : CD-Rom Drive
DMA : On
Autorun : Off

Adapter 2
---------
Description : Secondary IDE Channel

Driver
Description : System32\DRIVERS\atapi.sys
Company : Microsoft Corporation
Version : 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)
Description : IDE/ATAPI Port Driver

Attached Devices
Description : Master: LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165P6S
Type : CD-Rom Drive
DMA : On
Autorun : Off


Software Information
--------------------
Operating System : Windows XP Home Edition (5.01.2600 Service Pack 2)
Country : United Kingdom
Language : English
ANSI Code Page : 1252
OEM Code Page : 850
DirectX : DirectX 9.0c

Hardware Information
--------------------
CPU : Intel Pentium 4 2600 MHz
Bus Speed : 100 MHz
Motherboard : MICRO-STAR MS-6701
System : MEDIONPC
BIOS : Phoenix 6.00 PG
Memory : 1024 MB
Sound : Realtek AC97 Audio
Video : MEDION RADEON 9600 TX Secondary (Omega 3.8.291)


ASPI Information
----------------
System ASPI : ASPI is installed and working properly

WNASPI32.DLL : 4.71 (0002) 45056 bytes July 17, 2002
ASPI32.SYS : 4.71 (0002) 16877 bytes July 17, 2002
WINASPI.DLL : n/a 4455 bytes July 17, 2002
WOWPOST.EXE : n/a 3535 bytes July 17, 2002

Nero ASPI : ASPI is installed and working properly

WNASPI32.DLL : 2.0.1.74 164112 bytes November 02, 2004

 

[Joel]

Hi

I have a typical P4 2.6 system with 2 IDE connectors on my motherboard.I
have 2 DVD burners and 1 IDE hard disk (main system drive) on my machine.
All the drives are installed and working OK but I get problems with access
speeds / bandwidth when I use the burner that is on the same channel asthe
hard disk.

I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that the
burners are on separate IDE channels. I happen to have an old ABIT hot rod
100 raid controller card and was going to hook the main IDE drive up tothis
so that I could have the burners connected as masters on each of the ide
channels on the motherboard and no secondary devices connected at all.

Does this make sense?

I think you heard it right. It's better/safer to have DVD on separated
channel, so when both DVDs running at same time (like copying from one DVD
to other) they won't have to fight each other.

Do I need to change any bios settings to set the abit raid PCI card up as a
master device?

Is there a better way of doing this?

It works exactly like installing one or multiple hard drive.

- Channel 1

- Hard Drive = set jumper to MASTER
- 1st DVD = set jumper to SLAVE

- Channel 2

- DVD = Single_IDE (usually no jumper, or default)

Will the Abit hot rod 100 card be OK?

Will accessing my prmary hard disk through the Abit card degrade hard disk
access speeds?

Will using a card like the Abit raid controller on the PCI bus degrade other
PCI or AGP devices because it may be a bandwidth hog?

Please feel free to respond to any or all of the points i have raised.

Any other advice / issues?

Thanks

Pete

I used to have external IDE controller on older system, and had up to 7-8
IDE devices. But now hard drives are getting larger and cheaper, I don't
need more than 2-3 hard drives so no longer need external EIDE card to know
how well it work with larger and faster hard drive.

And with 3 IDE devices you don't need external IDE controller, you should
be able to have up to 4-IDE devices using mboard's build-in IDE channels.If
you need more then you can have up to 2 SATA devices (I just learn about the
SATA yesterday).

 

[Mike Walsh]

Use performance monitor or task manager to check CPU usage. CPU usage should be less than 20%. 16x is quite demanding, about 20 MB/sec. Your hard drive may not be able to keep up except when reading large unfragmented files. Try putting both writers on IDE channel 1. You might have to place each device on a separate cable to write at 16x. That should not be necessary, but things don't always work as they should.

 

[Mike Walsh]

Two optical drives on the same IDE channel usually work well, since they usually can run at the same speed (UDMA 2) and use the same (ATAPI) driver. I believe the biggest problem here is that UDMA 2 is not fast enough to simultaneously read and write at 16x.

 

[Rod Speed]

I think you heard it right.

'think' again.

It's better/safer to have DVD on separated channel,
so when both DVDs running at same time (like copying
from one DVD to other) they won't have to fight each other.

In practice that is normally done with something like
Nero or Roxio EMC and they handle that situation fine.

It works exactly like installing one or multiple hard drive.

- Channel 1

- Hard Drive = set jumper to MASTER
- 1st DVD = set jumper to SLAVE

- Channel 2

- DVD = Single_IDE (usually no jumper, or default)

I used to have external IDE controller on older system, and had up to
7-8 IDE devices. But now hard drives are getting larger and cheaper,
I don't need more than 2-3 hard drives so no longer need external
EIDE card to know how well it work with larger and faster hard drive.

And with 3 IDE devices you don't need external IDE controller, you
should be able to have up to 4-IDE devices using mboard's build-in
IDE channels. If you need more then you can have up to 2 SATA
devices (I just learn about the SATA yesterday).

It shows. Plenty of motherboards can handle more than 2 sata now.

 

[jaster]

Hi

I have a typical P4 2.6 system with 2 IDE connectors on my motherboard. I
have 2 DVD burners and 1 IDE hard disk (main system drive) on my machine.
All the drives are installed and working OK but I get problems with access
speeds / bandwidth when I use the burner that is on the same channel as
the hard disk.

I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that the
burners are on separate IDE channels. I happen to have an old ABIT hot rod
100 raid controller card and was going to hook the main IDE drive up to
this so that I could have the burners connected as masters on each of the
ide channels on the motherboard and no secondary devices connected at all.

Does this make sense?

Do I need to change any bios settings to set the abit raid PCI card up as
a master device?

Is there a better way of doing this?

Will the Abit hot rod 100 card be OK?

Will accessing my prmary hard disk through the Abit card degrade hard disk
access speeds?

Will using a card like the Abit raid controller on the PCI bus degrade
other PCI or AGP devices because it may be a bandwidth hog?

I don't know about the Abit raid controller card but you only have the one
HD.

I thought the reccommendation was to put similiar speed devices on the
same IDE channels. HD is on PIO 4 or ATA 100/133 while DVDs are usually
ATA 33/66 at best. Putting a ATA 100 with ATA 33 on the same IDE slows
traffic on the channel. HDs on IDE1 and DVDs on IDE2.

From a use point of view how frequent will you use you HD versus using
either DVD?

 

[Joel]

What happens if two optical drives are on the same IDE channel?

I am having a problem with an NEC 3540 as Master and an LG CD-burner
as Slave, selected by CD.

Besides it may not be the best choice when both running at the same time,
else it should no cause any problem. But I never have both bruner on same
channel to know for sure.

Or I always make burner as SLAVE of hard drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

Pete wrote

I don't know about the Abit raid controller card but you only have the one HD.

I thought the reccommendation was to put
similiar speed devices on the same IDE channels.

Nope, that is VERY obsolete.

HD is on PIO 4 or ATA 100/133 while DVDs are usually ATA 33/66 at best.

That last isnt right with the latest 16X burners.

Putting a ATA 100 with ATA 33 on the
same IDE slows traffic on the channel.

Nope, hasnt done for a VERY long time now.

 

[Citizen Bob]

Besides it may not be the best choice when both running at the same =
time,
else it should no cause any problem. But I never have both bruner on =
same
channel to know for sure.

I am not trying to run 2 optical drives at the same time. For one
thing, I can't get Win2K to boot properly.


--

Govt is an insult to human dignity. With or without govt,
you would have good people doing good things and evil
people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes govt. Govt is the root of all evil.

 

[jaster]

Nope, that is VERY obsolete.


That last isnt right with the latest 16X burners.

What makes you think he has the latest 16x burners?
Aren't the PIO 4 DVD burners running off SATA interfaces?

Nope, hasnt done for a VERY long time now.

Well I have 48x CDR and 12x DVD on IDE2 ATA33/ATA66 respectively.
2 ATA100 HDs on an ATA 100 IDE1 mb

 

[Joel]

I am not trying to run 2 optical drives at the same time. For one
thing, I can't get Win2K to boot properly.

If you don't run 2 DVD at same time then it should be no problem, then why
install 2 DVDs when you don't use both of them?

I don't mean burning at same itme (even you can as I read there is some
program can burn multiple bruners at same time, but for personal use we
don't need this power), but at least you can copy from one to other (1 read
1 write) then it may not be the good idea.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

What makes you think he has the latest 16x burners?

I didnt say he did, I was JUST commenting on that claim of yours just above.

Aren't the PIO 4 DVD burners running off SATA interfaces?

Nope, you can get that if Win decides that its getting too many
errors on the ata cable, it turns dma off in that situation for safety.

Well I have 48x CDR and 12x DVD on IDE2 ATA33/ATA66 respectively.
2 ATA100 HDs on an ATA 100 IDE1 mb

Irrelevant to that claim you made that hasnt been seen for a very long time.

It is usually more mechanically convenient to have both hard
drives on the one ribbon cable and both optical drives on another,
but there isnt a problem with the ata mode thats possible anymore.