SATA harddisk - master/slave

[Alan T]

Is there any advantage/dis-advantage of connecting 2 SATA harddisk as master
and slave?
Or I should install both SATA harddisk as master on its own SATA channel?

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Is there any advantage/dis-advantage of connecting 2 SATA harddisk as
master
and slave?
Or I should install both SATA harddisk as master on its own SATA channel?

If you were to connect two SATA disks as master and slave on the same
channel, how would you expect to do this?

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

SATA was specifically created for better speeds, and to eliminate the
need for master/slave settings.

To answer your question: You can't specify master/slave settings and
you can't have more than one SATA hard disk per channel. That's the way
they designed it. It's just physically impossible. MA/SL/CS jumpers are
a thing of the past.

Let me guess. You've run out of SATA channels and you want to add
another hard disk, right? Your solution to this would be to purchase a
PCI card that provides SATA connections, or to change your motherboard
to one that supports more SATA channels.

You could also just replace one of your hard disks with a larger one...

Most motherboards that are up to 2 years old or so should have at least
4 SATA channels on-board. My "ASUS A8N32-Sli-Deluxe" provides 6, with 16
more via the external eSATA connector.

Thanks for the info, but you obviously didn't understand my question. I was
asking him how he would expect to connect a master and slave to a single
SATA port. I went for an Asus P5W DH Deluxe, as I do not play games
anymore.

BTW, your smileys do not work here, in what is in fact, a newsgroup. Your
posts all appear to end with the word 'cool', LOL.

ss.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

It is easy to see how the confusion can arise. On my system, which is based
on an Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X motherboard, has 6 SATA connections, but in the
Vista Device manager I am shown 3 NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controllers each,
in properties, having 2 ports (0 and 1). Clearly, which port you use does
not matter but it does look rather similar to a Master & Slave situation.

Mike Bernstein

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

My apologies, I'll quit using the smileys then.

All SATA controllers have a "Port 0" and "Port 1", which loosely
translates to master/slave, even though that is an inaccurate call.

The difference comes in becase with IDE/ATA, you can have a "master" as
a standalone drive or a "master" with a "slave", but you cannot have
only a slave drive.

Who are you replying to? Your reply was to Mike Bernstein, but he didn't
ask the original question, and not did I, so I am wondering who you are
trying to explain this to?

If you used a newsreader it would be clearer who you are replying to.

On SATA, you can have a drive drive plugged into either port, and it'll
work, with no gain or loss in performance either way. -Thats what I've
been trying to explain to you-. Did it never occur to you that SATA
cables only have two connectors, of which one goes into the controller
and the other into the drive?

I KNOW THIS. That is why asked the OP how he expected to be able to connect
slave drives.

If you're looking to improve performance, then perhaps you should
consider RAID, but that goes beyond your original question of
master/slave settings.

I already use RAID-0, with WD Raptor drives, also using Matrix RAID,
allowing RAID-1 partitions as well, on the same drives.

ss.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

All SATA controllers have a "Port 0" and "Port 1", which loosely
translates to master/slave, even though that is an inaccurate call.

The difference comes in becase with IDE/ATA, you can have a
"master" as a standalone drive or a "master" with a "slave", but
you cannot have only a slave drive.

On SATA, you can have a drive drive plugged into either port,

< and it'll work, with no gain or loss in performance either way.


With an IDE controller, a lone HD *can* be jumpered as
Slave and still boot and run fine - I've even tried it. The modes
of Master and Slave have only 2 functions:
1) to differentiate between HDs when there are two of them
on the channel/cable, and
2) to provide a *default* Hard Drive Boot Order for the BIOS
in which the boot priority is this:
Master, IDE ch. 0,
Slave, IDE ch. 0,
Master, IDE ch. 1,
Slave, IDE ch. 1.

There *is* a signal reflection issue when a lone device is connected
to the middle connector of an IDE cable while the end connector
is unoccupied. Thus, Cable Select cannot be used for setting
a lone HD on a cable to Slave. A real jumper must be used to set
a lone HD to Slave since a lone device must be put on the end
connector to avoid signal reflections from the otherwise open-
circuited end connector.

But in I/O function, there is no difference between a Master and
Slave IDE device.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Alan T]

Thanks all your opinions.
I even didn't notice there is no master/slave options at the back of the
harddisk.
It only has 3 GB/s and 1.5 GB/s jumper settings.