Best way to arrange drives on IDE cables?

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 13 Jul 2005, 15:44

Hi everyone.

I have just bought a new hard drive to go into my PC, and it suddenly hit me that I am not absolutely positive which is the best way to set up the IDE cables with my drives.

I had a read around on the Internet and found some very conflicting opinions so I thought I'd ask on here before I install it.

Currently I have installed:

IDE1 Master - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE1 Slave - Nothing

IDE2 Master - LG DVD-RAM drive
IDE2 Slave - LG DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive

I have read on some sites that it is best to separate hard drives onto different cables so that when copying from one to the other, there is more available bandwidth, which makes sense.

But I have also read that if you put a hard drive and an optical drive on the same cable that the cable only allows the hard drive to run at the slower speed of the optical device in order to not create problems, which kind of makes sense but I don't know how much truth there is in that.

Also, I have read that 40-pin cables have master in the middle and slave on the end, but it is apparantly the other way round for 80-conductor wires. Is there any truth in that?

So in summary, I have 2 Maxtor hard drives (120GB & 160GB), both 7,200rpm & both with 8MB cache, and both capable of ATA133 transfer speeds, along with 2 LG optical drives. I would like to know the best way to connect the drives.

Thanks for any help / advice...

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 13 Jul 2005, 16:34

I have also read that if you put a hard drive and an optical drive on the same cable that the cable only allows the hard drive to run at the slower speed of the optical device

I don't agree with that.

I think it's better to have one hard-drive on each cable to maximise the bandwidth.
Both my optical drives are slaves.
Both my hard-drives are masters.

I'd recommend:

IDE1 Master - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE1 Slave - LG DVD-RAM drive

IDE2 Master - 160GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE2 Slave - LG DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive

Assuming that the 120gb will be C: and assuming that you use the DVD/CDRW drive more often than the DVD-Ram drive.
Because in my experience it is best to have the 2 most used devices on different cables.

Example: For watching a dvd, it's better to have the Hard-drive in IDE 1 and the DVD-drive in IDE 2.

Just my 2 cents.

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 13 Jul 2005, 18:06

IDE1 Master - Your drive which you will windows will be installed in
IDE1 Slave - Your other drive
IDE2 Master - Your drive which you will use mostly for reading
IDE2 Slave - DVD Burner

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 13 Jul 2005, 18:16

Tom2681 wrote:
I have also read that if you put a hard drive and an optical drive on the same cable that the cable only allows the hard drive to run at the slower speed of the optical device
I don't agree with that.

Yeah, I thought that sounded a bit stupid...

Tom2681 wrote:I think it's better to have one hard-drive on each cable to maximise the bandwidth.
Both my optical drives are slaves.
Both my hard-drives are masters.

I'd recommend:

IDE1 Master - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE1 Slave - LG DVD-RAM drive

IDE2 Master - 160GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE2 Slave - LG DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive

Assuming that the 120gb will be C: and assuming that you use the DVD/CDRW drive more often than the DVD-Ram drive.
Because in my experience it is best to have the 2 most used devices on different cables.

That was exactly what I was thinking - I just wanted to make sure before I did it so that I'm not unknowingly slowing my system performance down for no reason.

I do use the DVD/CD-RW more than the DVD-RAM drive so it does make sense to connect them the way suggested.

Thanks!

Toge wrote:IDE1 Master - Your drive which you will windows will be installed in
IDE1 Slave - Your other drive
IDE2 Master - Your drive which you will use mostly for reading
IDE2 Slave - DVD Burner

Toge, what do you mean by other drive as IDE1 Slave? The other hard drive? Wouldn't having both hard drives on the same cable reduce available bandwidth?

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 13 Jul 2005, 18:21

One device per port... that's my rule

Which leaves you with 2 devices, need more? Buy additional ports

(Like SATA!)

Else I'd say Tom's suggestion sounds okay...

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 13 Jul 2005, 18:28

Well, I have 2 IDE ports and 4 IDE devices. My motherboard (ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe) does have 2 SATA ports but I'm not using them, simply because I don't have any SATA hard drives.

When I bought the motherboard and 120GB hard drive a while ago, SATA was in its infancy & I had heard that there were a lot of people having problems with it, so I decided to play it safe and go for a IDE hard drive.

I'm going to try Tom2681's advice later tonight and see how it goes...

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Jul 2005, 22:37

Tom2681 wrote:I'd recommend:

IDE1 Master - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE1 Slave - LG DVD-RAM drive

IDE2 Master - 160GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133
IDE2 Slave - LG DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive

I second this assuming the 120GB is your master drive? and you use your DVD-RAM as your main Reader? The latter because I find it nicer to have this as E: and the least important drive as F: .

I wouldn't recommend putting the two CD/DVD drives on the same IDE chain as copying from one CD/DVD to another has a large affect on performance if it needs to go between drives on the same chain.

I'm guessing it should be:

IDE1 Master - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133 (C drive)
IDE1 Slave - LG DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive (E drive)

IDE2 Master - 160GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache ATA133 (D drive)
IDE2 Slave - LG DVD-RAM drive (F drive)

Personally I have:

SATA1 - 120GB Maxtor 7,200rpm 8MB Cache SATA
SATA2 - Unused

IDE1 Master - Liteon DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive
IDE1 Slave - Unused

IDE2 Master - Liteon DVD-RW/DVD+RW/CD-RW drive
IDE2 Slave - Unused

SATA is great for four reasons:

1. It's faster
2. It completely frees up your IDE channels
3. The whole idea of slave drives is really messy and effects performance
4. The connection is smaller/nicer

IronMonkey wrote:Well, I have 2 IDE ports and 4 IDE devices. My motherboard (ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe) does have 2 SATA ports but I'm not using them, simply because I don't have any SATA hard drives.

When you upgrade do. You're now using drives on a slave chain when you A: don't need to, B: are getting slower hard drives and C: slower performance generally speaking

IronMonkey wrote:When I bought the motherboard and 120GB hard drive a while ago, SATA was in its infancy & I had heard that there were a lot of people having problems with it, so I decided to play it safe and go for a IDE hard drive.

It's the SP2 syndrome I'm afraid. A handful of people have problems and everyone avoids it. The fact is they're faster.

When I set mine up I had two problems:

1. I didn't realise it's recognised as a SCSI device in the BIOS and wondered why the Primary bootup device only lets me select floppy or CD. I set the SCSI correctly and it booted fine
2. The second was a bit more tricky. When I installed XP I had to put in a floppy disk with third party drives to recognise the SATA interface.

The problem is the option to put a third party disk in is right at the start and it will only let you choose floppy disk. Of course I only got a driver CD. I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't had an old PC still working to browse the web/put the files on to floppy disk.

This I'm sure will be fixed properly in the next release of Windows.

Tom2681 wrote:Because in my experience it is best to have the 2 most used devices on different cables.

You've got a good point. I never really thought of it that way.

I'd probably still switch them as it's nicer to have your main CD/DVD driver in an earlier letter. I don't use mine all that often anyway.

IronMonkey wrote:But I have also read that if you put a hard drive and an optical drive on the same cable that the cable only allows the hard drive to run at the slower speed of the optical device in order to not create problems, which kind of makes sense but I don't know how much truth there is in that.

There is logic behind it but I think it's mainly people guessing.

I've never found it actually effects performance and besides why would your uber fast hard disk suddenly become the speed of a CD/DVD drive?

IronMonkey wrote:Toge, what do you mean by other drive as IDE1 Slave? The other hard drive? Wouldn't having both hard drives on the same cable reduce available bandwidth?

I believe that is what Toge means and he therefore subscribes to the above philosophy.

Tom and I don't. Toge you're out voted

IronMonkey wrote:I have just bought a new hard drive to go into my PC, and it suddenly hit me that I am not absolutely positive which is the best way to set up the IDE cables with my drives.

As it's a secondary drive it should really have been SATA. The "only" problems I know of are where people are using them as boot drives.

But fair enough you went good old IDE.

IronMonkey wrote:Also, I have read that 40-pin cables have master in the middle and slave on the end, but it is apparently the other way round for 80-conductor wires. Is there any truth in that?

Nope that's a load of baloney. It's set by the jumper on the CD/DVD or HD.

Personally I've "always" put my master on the last IDE channel and the slave on the middle channel but that's really because I prefer how it looks.

EDIT: OR at least I'm 90% sure it's solely set by the jumper. Like I said on all IDE (40 and 80) I've put the master last and the slave in the middle and it's always worked for me. The bios has reported each as they should.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 13 Jul 2005, 22:45

C + : + ) = C:)

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Jul 2005, 22:49

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 13 Jul 2005, 23:09

Read the first part of your previous message.
You tried writing "e: )" , "c: )" , etc... but instead ": ) " was interpreted as a smiley.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Jul 2005, 23:22

LOL oops.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 14 Jul 2005, 11:34

As for putting the main CD drive on a specifed place to get it as E: ... er... you been in the Disk Manager (found under Administrative Tools - Computer managment) much Brad? Right click the drive, choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths..." and there you go

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 14 Jul 2005, 13:16

Yeah I know about that but I prefer to order them properly (partly in case it decides to revert back which it can) BUT in reality you're perfectly correct.

So yes Iron Monkey take Tom's advice and reorder the main DVD/CD drive to E or D drive.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 14 Jul 2005, 13:38

Well, I'm on a PC at work today. I need to get longer IDE cables because the ones I've got at the moment don't reach!

Damnit!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 14 Jul 2005, 13:45

Get 80-pin cables for everything. Even if the drive doesn't support 80-pins (i.e - some/most CD drives) it will make them run more efficiently.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 14 Jul 2005, 15:21

Yeah, I've got some longer 80-wire cables. I know about the whole 40 / 80-wire issue. I don't agree about drives that don't support 80-wire still being more efficient on those cables - they have no way of taking advantage of them.

By the way, all IDE cables are 40-pins, regardless of whether there are 40 or 80 wires inside...

I just hope these new 60cm cables are long enough when I try them out tonight, otherwise I'll have to buy some 90cm cables from the Internet, which I don't really want to do because there will then be a lot of excess cable inside my PC case...

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 14 Jul 2005, 18:16

IronMonkey wrote:Yeah, I've got some longer 80-wire cables. I know about the whole 40 / 80-wire issue. I don't agree about drives that don't support 80-wire still being more efficient on those cables - they have no way of taking advantage of them.

You reckon?

I really meant in hindsight that the 80 wire cable is better quality.

IronMonkey wrote:By the way, all IDE cables are 40-pins, regardless of whether there are 40 or 80 wires inside...

Typo.

Actually wasn't the original IDE less than 40 pins? 8)

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 15 Jul 2005, 21:56

IronMonkey wrote:
Tom2681 wrote:
Toge, what do you mean by other drive as IDE1 Slave? The other hard drive? Wouldn't having both hard drives on the same cable reduce available bandwidth?

Hell no. Doesn't affect it at all, unless you don't have an 80pin IDE cable.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 15 Jul 2005, 22:48

not entirely correct... though I don't have a system at HAND to prove this - but if memory serves me correct I noticed a large performance hit with 2 IDE drives on the same channel during intensive disc access simultaneously from both discs even WITH an 80 pin cable... the logic behind this being that the channel is run by 1 "bus/chip" and has to r/w from drive 1 then drive 2 in order not simultaneously...

Though this may not be apparent in regular use, but say while I was generating a 15gig video file to drive 1 from large hunks of files on drive 2 - it did slow down...

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 15 Jul 2005, 23:21

The theory also says the whole slave drive process is pants and a very old idea. I can't believe people with new systems are still using IDE hard drives.

I can have two optical drives (IDE) in my computer and two hard drives (SATA) without using any form of slave device. Much nicer all round.

Toge · Post by **Toge** » 16 Jul 2005, 11:38

Asked around on DVDF...

"doesnt the IDE work to the slowest device, so the HDD will only use the speed of the optical device interface?

I have always thought HD on one IDe and optical on the other?

I have an old KT7a-Raid and have 1 device per IDE."

"I read the same thing and the HDD goes down to the same UDMA mode at the optical drive.

I need to sort my IDE channels out as both of my HDD's and DVD got stuck on Multi Word DMA. It is the slowest DMA mode and happened since replacing my motherboard."

"yes, if you have an optical drive and hd on the same channel it will only work at the speed of the lowest device, so i'd always advise putting the opticals on the same channel so they don't slow down the hard drives."

So I was right

Huzzah! 1-0 to me!

http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/show ... p?t=378128

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 16 Jul 2005, 17:22

That's not conclusive.

It's one of those things where you have to make your own mind up as you'll find as many people who say one thing as the other.

Personally I completely disagree with that statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The use of the acronym HDD is really starting to piss me off. You never saw it up until a few years ago when HD Recorders came out and decided it's the right acronym to use.

It stands for Hard Disk Drive which is the same as daying Hard Disk or Hard Drive. If we're going to repeat ourselves as a course of action we may as well all say I'm going to drive my CA (Car Automobile). Saying Car or Automobile makes just as much sense.

HD means either Hard Drive or Hard Disk you don't need to add the second D which just makes it look stupid.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 17 Jul 2005, 10:45

Err, I have a HDD secondary master running UltraDMA5 and a DVD-burner as secondary slave running UltraDMA2. Meaning they run at different speed EVEN though they are on the same cable. Furthermore, I have an exact same type drive running solo as HDD primary master - and speedcomparisons between them show no difference in speed.

As for asking people on the internet for help like this? Don't. There are a lot of people out there that have heard something once or formed a personal opinion based on not-so-hard-facts that are very willing to present this as truth or hard-fact.

And certainly on a non-technical forum like DVDForums. This would be better answered by someone over at TomsHardware - but again, you do not know WHO answers you. I'm pretty confident in what I'm saying since I've been working with this kind of "crap" (computers) since '85 and I currently work as an IT Engineer... Then again, I know for a fact that there are drives and controllers (more specifically older units) that can't manage to do what my system does - and thus falls back to "safe mode" when mixed with certain other drives/controllers.

As for HDD acronyms - I've seen it used since the early 90s. It's not new. It may be even older - perhaps to seperate it from other names like Winchester Drives... and saying hard disk drive is not redundant as "hard disk" describes the physical method of storing data while drive suggests it's a complete unit, as opposed to hard disk platter which is one (of maybe several) disks that make up a complete drive. If that makes any sense. If I'd want to get pissed off there's a lot of worse thing out there on planet earth to get pissed off at than the HDD acronym

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 17 Jul 2005, 18:55

"hard disk" describes the physical method of storing data while drive suggests it's a complete unit

What would it be if we're talking about the physical method of storing data in an incomplete unit then? What would be classified as an incomplete unit?

I've been working in the IT field and with IT since 1990 and have never heard the two being used that way before.

Both to my understanding mean the 2.", 2.5" or 5.25" drive. True on platters but I wasn't talking about them.

gojensen wrote:As for asking people on the internet for help like this? Don't.

So Iron Monkey shouldn't believe a word that you're saying then?

Personally I ask many people from many forums and:

A: Believe what sounds right to me
B: Believe who sounds like they know what they're talking about