New drive help

[iceman]

Hi guys, quick question--

I just got a new dvd drive for my system to go along with everything else in my sig. My mobo only has 2 IDE channels that are presently full (HDD & CD-RW). Yet my manual says "2 IDE channels (supports up to 4 devices)" . How do I hook up this 3rd device? Also, could anyone give me their suggestions on how I should set these devices up in regards to the IDE channel-master/slave relationship? I'd appreciate everyone's comments.

Thanks!

[Lorddraco98]

OK, On each IDE channel you can have 2 devices hooked up, thus the 4 devices supported. On the IDE cable there will be one end that goes into the mobo, the other end that goes to the device and a little ways down on the connector that goes into the device there will be another connector for the 2nd device on that channel. The reccomended setup that I like to use is Hard drives on one channel and the 2 cd-rom's on the other. So, let's say you pick IDE channel I for your hard drive, set that to Master on the drive. Then channel 2, you can have either the DVD or CDRW as master and the other one as slave. Hope this helps! If you need more info just let me know. :)

[turd]

think channel as in one cable. so look into your puter and plug the 2nd cable in and that will be using your second channel, think devices as the 2 things that u plug into each cable

when hooking them up u want to consider speed,caus the slowest device on each cable is the speed for everything on that cable(channel)

prob the easy route is just to leave the other cable be and jack your new, most likely UDMA 66+ DVD drive into the new cable it came with and put that into your empty cable plug on your motherboard. but looking at your setup if you put your 2 cd devices together you will prob get better overall system performance


pay attention to how you setup the jumper on that device or any of the others(if moved) the jumpers if set wrong usually result in your OS not seeing the newely messed with device config

[Shadow ÒÓ]

actually no....your slowest device will run normally and your faster drive will also...the only time it slows down is when you transfer data between them.

Example: If you have a mobo that supports ATA 100, and an ATA 100 hard drive, but add another ATA 33 drive to the same ribbon, one will run at ATA 100 and one at ATA 33 except when transferring files between the drives. The ATA drive will not slow the ATA 100 drive down to ATA 33.

A lot of computers come with IDE ribbons with only 2 connectors (one for the mobo and one for the drive). You may have to purchase a new ribbon with 3 connectors on it.

[turd]

shadow i would assume that u are sure about that,(the speed) but i have always heard differently, and looking to be sure i found this from MS: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q141/5/91.asp
which was updated Aug 2001 which seems to be stating that there is a slowdown, but this is specific to NT 3-4.0. However, as recently as last weeks issue of the (newly renamed, yet again)WINDOWS & .NET MAGAZINE Jan 2002 issue , there is an article titled "Maximizing ATA disk Performance,Part 1" which states: " Second, isolate the disk onto seperate channels. This isolation is important because an ATA channel defaults to the speed of the slowest disk on the channel. If ATA/33- and ATA/100-capable disks reside on the same channel, the maximum attainable speed will be that of ATA/33."

if this is not so i am glad to learn that, but where does that info come from?

i do really like this forum, and i can see by your title that u probably are a good part responsible for this being the fine place this is, so please do not take this post wrong

[WyrmMaster]

I think that that slow down is one of the common misconceptions of computer hardware. The fact that it does slow down transfer from one drive tot he other drive on that chanel would be why people think that.