Will 2 hard Drives run ok............

[Goodie]

I just bought a new Hard Drive and my old one works ok still. So what I want to do is use both of them. I looked at my main board and there are 2 IDE connections, but one is being used by the old hard drive right now and the other has 2 cd roms on it. Is it ok to hook up 2 hard drives to one connection? I know that when I transfer data from one to the other it will be next to a snails pace, but is it ok to do this?

Thanks guys.

 

[Garfield]

I can't see why it would be a problem. Your one hdd would be the master and the other the slave? You're right, the data transfer would be pretty slow, so maybe (I don't know) you could switch it up and put the hdds on different channels. Know what I mean?

 

[Cowboy X]

It will be slower but not a snail's pace . U can put a cdrom on the primary channel with your original hd and put the new one as master on the secondary channel :

primary channel = hd1 as master , cd 1 as slave.

secondary channel = hd 2 as master , cd 2 as slave.

That setup should give the best performance.

 

[Goodie]

Thanks for the help guys. Time to get out the good 'ol Tool box and rip this thing apart, Muhahahahaha.

 

[Garfield]

It will be slower but not a snail's pace . U can put a cdrom on the primary channel with your original hd and put the new one as master on the secondary channel :

primary channel = hd1 as master , cd 1 as slave.

secondary channel = hd 2 as master , cd 2 as slave.

That setup should give the best performance.

That's what I was trying to get at. Sorry if I wasn't clear...

 

[Cowboy X]

Garfield ................. I was typing while you posted , so I didn't see ur reply til after.

 

[Garfield]

Garfield ................. I was typing while you posted , so I didn't see ur reply til after.

Yeah, don't worry about it, I just don't think I explained my plan as well as you did. I have a tendency to talk around in circles and make simple conversation complex. Sorry

 

[diehrd]

Doing it the way stated above will limit booth drives to the transfer rates of the CDrom ,,CDrw..IE ATA 33,66 .

Now if the drives are ATA 100 and you want to matain that performance install a Promiss ATA controller card and set every drive to Master on there own cable . This will ensure fasta data transfer and ensure data sent to thr Burner is sent uncorrupted....

{A Burner and a CDrom should not be on the same cable exspecially if you try to copy a CD on the FLY}

 

[Xaotic]

The only limitation of the ATA spec for reading and writing to drives is that devices have to read sequentially. Current IDE controllers use dual fifo buffers and can operate devices at different speeds on the same channel, just not at the same time. Performance would be somewhat hampered if you hook your system drive and the most commonly used CD to the same controller, but only in that they will be able to communicate to the bus sequentially. A PCI controller is still a better idea for access speed however, since you can eliminate the delays in controller access.

 

[Max 86]

0

 

[Xaotic]

I'll see if my faulty memory can dig them up.

 

[Garfield]

Doing it the way stated above will limit booth drives to the transfer rates of the CDrom ,,CDrw..IE ATA 33,66 .

Now if the drives are ATA 100 and you want to matain that performance install a Promiss ATA controller card and set every drive to Master on there own cable . This will ensure fasta data transfer and ensure data sent to thr Burner is sent uncorrupted....

{A Burner and a CDrom should not be on the same cable exspecially if you try to copy a CD on the FLY}

I don't understand why the burner and cdrom shouldn't be on the same IDE channel. Would data get confused and messed up? So, you're better off putting the cdrom as a slave to the hdd and then the burner on the other channel? But, how about a dvd-rom and a burner. They'd have to go on the same channel because the hdd and cdrom are taking up the other channel. How would you go about this?

 

[MoPMatrix]

You want things that have similar speed on the same cable,
Like u wouldnt want a HD and a floppy drive on the same cable...
I would set it up, both HDs on one cable and the 2 CD drives on the other cable...
I have my CD-RW and DVD/CD drive on the same cable, I burn on the fly from one to the other with no probs at all, been doin it like that for years
no probs so far anyway

 

[Cowboy X]

MoPMatrix .............. you mention what is the ideal setup for anyone with $ or extra pci slots for a controller ................. incidentally i ahve such a setup on my older rig with a pormise ata 66 controller running my cd drives .

Most people will not want to spend the $ or use system space / resources for another controller . Secondly having a burner and a cdrom on the same channel decreases the speed of on the fly burns esp at high speed . With burn proof tech widespread this is less of an issue but it is still best to have them on different channels . Importantly the master on a given channel tends to run faser than the slave that's why the hds would be best as masters as well rather than slave to a cd or other hd .................... meanwhile a cdrom is much slower than an hd and is less likely to be slowed down by the presence of an hd on the channel as master.

.............. my $0.02

 

[diehrd]

I don't understand why the burner and cdrom shouldn't be on the same IDE channel. Would data get confused and messed up? So, you're better off putting the cdrom as a slave to the hdd and then the burner on the other channel? But, how about a dvd-rom and a burner. They'd have to go on the same channel because the hdd and cdrom are taking up the other channel. How would you go about this?

Reread what u qouted me as saying.The answer is clear.

Nero Burrning rom will also tell you upon first install of its software to not have the Burner share the cable from which the data being burned comes from.{This again refers to on the fly burning}

 

[Garfield]

Do you suggest getting this controller (are you talking about RAID?) for better/more IDE connections?

 

[Xaotic]

RAID is not necessary, just a PCI IDE controller. However, unless you are having problems or simply want more performance, it may not be worth the expense. Additionally, some controllers have been known to have issues with CDROM/RW/DVD performance, so it's probably better for hanging hard drives. What diehrd is saying is very accurate from a burning standpoint. You want the devices to have unrestricted access to the controller channels for maximum throughput. For 2 IDE HDDs and 2 ATAPI interfaces for CDs, the optimal method of installation would probably be to use a PCI IDE controller with the HDDs connected as primary and secondary master on the controller and the CDs as primary and secondary master on the onboard IDE controllers. This will give each an unrestricted channel to the motherboard and minimize latency. Hope this clarifies the issues somewhat.

 

[diehrd]

Well said ... A promiss ata 133 or ata 100 controller card is for basic drives like you have ....

 

[JimmyG]

If you are considering buying a PCI controller, you may also want to consider getting a new MOBO that has four master channels such as the ASUS A7V266e. Two are standard IDE and two are 100 UDMA promise controllers. I am running two hard drives one on each promise controller and my burner on one regular ide and cdrom on the other. You may be able to sell your current mobo and buy the new mobo for about the same as what a controller costs.

 

[Garfield]

I'm not sure if I'm following this. Here, for example, is my predicament. Right now I have my hdd (the only one I have) on the primary master IDE channel. I also have my cd-rom on the secondary master IDE channel. Now, I'm going to buy a dvd-rom. Where do I put it and what configuration do I use?