IDE Cable

[Axel Beck]

Hi folks,
just installed a second hard drive and have been wondering what the
IDE cable middle and end plugs really represent. I know that it says
that the middle plug is for your slave device and the end plug is for
the master device but does it really matter? When I opened my box I
found that the maker had put the single hard drive on the slave pin
and the master pin was plugged into my CD Rom. Everything worked find.
Question: again, what does it really matter what plug on the IDE cable
goes where when it seems to me that the real matter lies with how the
devices are jumpered. Thanks, Axel.

 

[D.Currie]

Hi folks,
just installed a second hard drive and have been wondering what the
IDE cable middle and end plugs really represent. I know that it says
that the middle plug is for your slave device and the end plug is for
the master device but does it really matter? When I opened my box I
found that the maker had put the single hard drive on the slave pin
and the master pin was plugged into my CD Rom. Everything worked find.
Question: again, what does it really matter what plug on the IDE cable
goes where when it seems to me that the real matter lies with how the
devices are jumpered. Thanks, Axel.

If you use master and slave jumpers, it doesn't matter what position on the
cable the drives are. If you use cable select jumpers on both drives, the
position on the cable determines which is master and which is slave.

 

[Axel Beck]

Thanks for clearing that up. Axel

If you use master and slave jumpers, it doesn't matter what position on the
cable the drives are. If you use cable select jumpers on both drives, the
position on the cable determines which is master and which is slave.

 

[Guest]

There are significant reasons why IDE devices should be connected in the
proper manner.

All relates to priority of service by the system / bus and IDE controllers.
Most PCs have 2 IDE controllers allowing 2 Drives each. The Primary IDE
Controller and Secondary IDE controller are usually labelled IDE0 and IDE1 on
motherboards. These labels are not just an excuse for putting more graphics
onto the PCB.

Also a Drive which is Jumpered as master gets priority over a slave. Hence
always set your system driver as the Primary Master. It gets the highest
level of attention. The cable position also is interpreted by the IDE
controller [notice that there is another option to jumper - being CS or Cable
Select] so yes it is also important to locate the drive properly on the cable
relative to its function [master / slave].

Again, the higher the performance [data transfer speed, lower seek time,
etc] devices should be placed ahead of the slower speed devices. Thus a Hard
Disk Drive should always be jumpered as Master if paired with an optical
drive on the same IDE interface.

One should also attempt to place the second hard drive as the Secondary
Master. Thus if IDE0 is busy working with Primary Master, then IDE1 can work
with Secondary Master.

This is a significant part of Hardware Tuning that most builders ignore or
is just another thing of which they aren't aware. It has greater
significance today when we see comparativley huge system swap files and very
large data files being moved in and out of memory. Just look at how large
your email file is [with Outlook it's the .PST file] many that I work on are
well over 200Mb: and that takes time to read off the disk.

Now, when manufacturing a PC to the smallest cost and maximum margin, you'll
find that where there are one HDD and one Optical drive, most manufactures
save the few cents and only use one IDE cable. Simple econmoics casues this
to happen. Not because it makes a PC faster, in fact the opposite is true.

So it can be wired up with a Hard Drive as Slave, with Optical as
Master...BIOS is generally set to look for the Hard Drive as the first
bootable device.. and it will function properly: one just finds that the
system can be tuned a little better.

Hope this helps you to get a faster PC.

Quite dumb.

 

[Zagan]

I agree with BAR, Well Said!

-----Original Message-----
There are significant reasons why IDE devices should be connected in the
proper manner.

All relates to priority of service by the system / bus and IDE controllers.
Most PCs have 2 IDE controllers allowing 2 Drives each. The Primary IDE
Controller and Secondary IDE controller are usually labelled IDE0 and IDE1 on
motherboards. These labels are not just an excuse for putting more graphics
onto the PCB.

Also a Drive which is Jumpered as master gets priority over a slave. Hence
always set your system driver as the Primary Master. It gets the highest
level of attention. The cable position also is interpreted by the IDE
controller [notice that there is another option to jumper - being CS or Cable
Select] so yes it is also important to locate the drive properly on the cable
relative to its function [master / slave].

Again, the higher the performance [data transfer speed, lower seek time,
etc] devices should be placed ahead of the slower speed devices. Thus a Hard
Disk Drive should always be jumpered as Master if paired with an optical
drive on the same IDE interface.

One should also attempt to place the second hard drive as the Secondary
Master. Thus if IDE0 is busy working with Primary Master, then IDE1 can work
with Secondary Master.

This is a significant part of Hardware Tuning that most builders ignore or
is just another thing of which they aren't aware. It has greater
significance today when we see comparativley huge system swap files and very
large data files being moved in and out of memory. Just look at how large
your email file is [with Outlook it's the .PST file] many that I work on are
well over 200Mb: and that takes time to read off the disk.

Now, when manufacturing a PC to the smallest cost and maximum margin, you'll
find that where there are one HDD and one Optical drive, most manufactures
save the few cents and only use one IDE cable. Simple econmoics casues this
to happen. Not because it makes a PC faster, in fact the opposite is true.

So it can be wired up with a Hard Drive as Slave, with Optical as
Master...BIOS is generally set to look for the Hard Drive as the first
bootable device.. and it will function properly: one just finds that the
system can be tuned a little better.

Hope this helps you to get a faster PC.

Quite dumb.

Thanks for clearing that up. Axel

.