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IDE Controller

  • 13-06-2002 01:46AM
    #1
    Lucifer 2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 47 ✭


    Ok, so most computers have a primary IDE channel and a secondary IDE channel, each with a cable capable of connecting two drives, one master and one slave.
    Here's how my Dell, and I image most other computers are initially set up.

    Primary IDE Channel : Master : Hard drive (boot drive)
    Primary IDE Channel : Slave : Second hard drive (mostly mp3's)
    Secondary IDE Channel : Master : DVD-ROM
    Secondary IDE Channel : Slave : CD-RW

    This works fine most of the time, unless I want to make a copy of a CD. I use CloneCD which informs me that unless the source (DVD) and destination (CD-RW) drives are on different IDE channles, I should create a temp image on one of my HD's.

    Again this isn't too big a deal. However I tried moving around the drives inside my computer so that there would be a HD and CD on each IDE channel. Unfortunately as there was so little slack in the cables the fit was too tight.

    I considered getting a new cable but a friend told me this which surprised me and I am basically wondering if its true. He said that if there are two drives on the same channel that they will both run at the speed of the slower one. As CD's are slower than HD's this would seemingly slow up my system.

    Does anyone have any knowledge if that anything in the above post is in anyway accurate?

    Food for thought is all.


Comments

  • #2
    po0k
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,817 ✭✭✭✭po0k


    If they're both DMA interfaces they should be fine.
    You're only going to run into performance issues if one of the drives is PIO.

    If both DVD and CDRW are DMA-2 or greater (UDMA33/66/100+) then you're sound.
    And you should make hard drive images of discs in CloneCD anyways. If you intend reading subchannel data and stuff tis the only way to be reliable.
    CloneCD will still copy discs 'on the Fly'.

    Yer mate is right about the speed reduction on a fast interface if you hook up a slow one too.
    Any DMA interface is generaly fast enough fo decent CD work.


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