Hard Drive and DVD cable - Master/Slave question.

daedal · Mar 29, 2005, 07:45 AM

Ok, stupid question, I know but this has been bugging me.
I have a single IDE ribbon (ordering rounded) with 3 connectors.

One of them is obviously on the motherboard and the other two for the hardware. Now, seeing as my harddrive is physically "under" my DVD-Burner, how can I set it that my Hard Drive is master and the Burner a slave if my cable has only two connectors and defines the top connector as Master?

Also, is it better to simply use two IDEs to make both drives Masters or a Master/Slave combo works just fine? Just wondering because I'm about to order my cables here.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Mar 29, 2005, 08:37 AM

Well with jumpers, or cableing it really doesn't matter if your use 1 cable
but you'll get the best performance putting them on separate cables

coldfrontt · Mar 29, 2005, 08:58 AM

Use 2 cables if possible, it's better to separate the traffic from 2 devices that run at differant speeds.

daedal · Mar 29, 2005, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldfrontt

Use 2 cables if possible, it's better to separate the traffic from 2 devices that run at differant speeds.

Aha, that's what I suspected. I'll pick up two cables then. Thanks.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Mar 29, 2005, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daedal

Aha, that's what I suspected. I'll pick up two cables then. Thanks.

if your ordering online a cheap place to consider http://www.bestbyteinc.com/products.asp?dept=58

Logla · Mar 30, 2005, 07:00 AM

Just saw this - was going to add that if you have a HDD which is say ATA150 (150MHz) and your CD-ROM is UDMA66 (66MHz) then the HDD will also run at 66MHz because the IDE channel will default to the lowest speed device on that connected cable.

coldfrontt · Mar 30, 2005, 06:38 PM

That's not always the case with modern chipsets.

Judas · Mar 30, 2005, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldfrontt

That's not always the case with modern chipsets.

agreed.. it's not the case anymore... depending on the chipsets..... depending on which device is has been called... it'll transfer at that speed.. but if a device on the same cable... is called... the transfers are increased or decreased or remain the same... course, i've only seen this work correctly on chipsets made within the last 2 years i think. it may be less then that...

And you can't always trust was XP has to say about the devices.. as it may say for one device... ATA133 and the next ATA33...

Got to bench it to make sure....

Logla · Mar 31, 2005, 08:14 AM

With more than one device on one cable, you will only be able to transfer data at the lower rate. That is fact - its down to the IDE/ATA specifcation.

Windows may report that an hdd is 150 while the cd rom on the same cable is 66 or whatever but you cant have both devices transferring data at the same speed when one doesn't support the faster interface because you'll end up with data corruption - think of overclocking and not locking the FSB.

I'm sure you'll agree Judas as this information is in the A+ Hardware exam.

mkk · Mar 31, 2005, 09:56 AM

The issue of a lower spec PATA unit forcing another to lower transfer rate is something that was solved in an Intel Pentium motherboard chipset about ten years ago. Perhaps it has afterwards reappeared on some odd chipset but I haven't seen any first hand occurrences of it. The limitation that remains is the one where only one of the two units can physically use the cable at the same time, but that's different.

Logla · Mar 31, 2005, 11:46 AM

Well then I stand corrected.

CompTIA want to seriously review their study guides then.

Shaga · Mar 31, 2005, 12:04 PM

Just but both drivers into different cables, performance/stability quaranteed to be maximum, and get fast enough cables.

Shaga · Mar 31, 2005, 12:19 PM

I have this kind of cables for my dvd-burner(nec dl) and for my linux hd.

My main hd is in sata connector.

Tipstaff · Mar 31, 2005, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coldfrontt

Use 2 cables if possible, it's better to separate the traffic from 2 devices that run at differant speeds.

Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents here, and clairify something:

Ontop of what has been suggested, the main reason is traffic, but a different kind of traffic. Remember the game 'Round Robin'? Well, with having devices on the same cable all traffic from one device has to travel down the cable to the motherboard, then back again to the other device along the same cable. Then, the repsonse goes down the cable to the mobo, then back to the other device.. and so on, and so on.. see the bottleneck here? Back and forth it goes, and if you have a lot of data you'll start to get collision problems. If buring something, especially a DVD that has a ton of data floating back and forth, you can be assured you will generate more coasters (not to mention your system will be bogged down). With having each drive on seperate cables relieves this, and essentially gives you better performance, and better burning stability. Not to mention you should notice any transfers from CD/DVD to hard drive will be faster (like software installations).

Hmm.. that seemd more like a bucks worth, didn't it?

-Tip

Shaga · Mar 31, 2005, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents here, and clairify something:

Ontop of what has been suggested, the main reason is traffic, but a different kind of traffic. Remember the game 'Round Robin'? Well, with having devices on the same cable all traffic from one device has to travel down the cable to the motherboard, then back again to the other device along the same cable. Then, the repsonse goes down the cable to the mobo, then back to the other device.. and so on, and so on.. see the bottleneck here? Back and forth it goes, and if you have a lot of data you'll start to get collision problems. If buring something, especially a DVD that has a ton of data floating back and forth, you can be assured you will generate more coasters (not to mention your system will be bogged down). With having each drive on seperate cables relieves this, and essentially gives you better performance, and better burning stability. Not to mention you should notice any transfers from CD/DVD to hard drive will be faster (like software installations).

Hmm.. that seemd more like a bucks worth, didn't it?

-Tip

Agreed, totally.

Have you ever tried putting cd-drive into same cable with cdr-drive and burn from cd to cd. I tried that in my past. Don't do it!

Zelig · Mar 31, 2005, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaga

Agreed, totally.

Have you ever tried putting cd-drive into same cable with cdr-drive and burn from cd to cd. I tried that in my past. Don't do it!

Hmm, I actually do that quite often, even burning at 52x... no coasters yet.

swimtech · Mar 31, 2005, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zelig

Hmm, I actually do that quite often, even burning at 52x... no coasters yet.

Uh, me too. If it ain't broke... Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to mess with benching the different setups.

I know there are other posts in the forums here that go deeper into this, somewhere...

Judas · Mar 31, 2005, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logla

Well then I stand corrected.

CompTIA want to seriously review their study guides then.

actually it was on the test and they have made changes to it ...well for the one i took.. .got the answer right... (i couldn't repeat the question or answer though... i just know i got it right

)

Like i said and another have said.. they fixed the "Speed limitations" quite awhile ago, however, it's only been migrated into majority desktop motherboards for a short period of time. Only set back ATM if you have a more recent board is the round robbin effect as previously mentioned... IF a call is made for the drive with the ATA133 bus for example... that speed will be sent... completely ignoring what ever other device is on that cable. As soon as a call for the other device is made... it transfers at it's rated speed. This is why on some systems, with for example a ATA66 and ATA133 drive hooked up on the same cable, you'll see the ATA133 drive preform at it's rated speed.... and the ATA66 drive as well....

Tipstaff · Apr 1, 2005, 12:47 AM

Off topic:

Love your new avatar and sig there Judas.. super sharp and sexy.

-Tip

daedal · Apr 1, 2005, 06:09 AM

Ok.. so I'm all confused now. Do I need a single dual-device IDE cable or two single-device?

I'm picking up the Thermaltake Shark case, anyone have an idea how long my cable has to be if I had a DVD and single hard drive? Dunno if I need 18" or if 12" will be long enough to reach both pieces.

Shaga · Apr 1, 2005, 06:23 AM

I think it doesn't matter match if it's dual-device cable on just one hd for example, but it's more "clean" to have just single-drive cable.

coldfrontt · Apr 1, 2005, 08:05 AM

Get dual device capable cables....you might need the extra connections later.

daedal · Apr 1, 2005, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaga

I think it doesn't matter match if it's dual-device cable on just one hd for example, but it's more "clean" to have just single-drive cable.

I agree. Just trying to keep my ammount of cabling to a minimum so I'm wondering if I should get a dual-drive cable and place both my hard drive and DVD burner on the same cable, or simply use two single-drive cables.

Shaga · Apr 1, 2005, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daedal

I agree. Just trying to keep my ammount of cabling to a minimum so I'm wondering if I should get a dual-drive cable and place both my hard drive and DVD burner on the same cable, or simply use two single-drive cables.

I'm sure you will get more benefits by using them in different cables, I was before talking about having "cables-with-two-connectors" with just one drive in them.