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I've come across this previously, but had no particular interest in taking note of it at the time.
What is the preferred method of installing a CD drive and CD burner to optimize CD copying? Should both be plugged into the same IDE connector on the motherboard or is it preferable to seperate them? Which is slave, which is master?
And of course, an explanation of this would be appreciated to alleviate my mental deficiency in this matter <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">
I've gotten conflicting instructions from Adaptec, Hotburn, and a couple of others. One program said that the CDR and CDRW should NOT be on the same IDE channel, and another one said that I should make sure that the CDRW is set as the "Master". I'm not sure how much stock I put in either of these but it's entirely possible to comply with both, assuming you have a main drive, a CD/DVD and a CDRW, you set your main drive to Primary Master, your CD/DVD to Primary Slave, your CDRW to Secondary Master, and anything else you have to Secondary Slave. This results on both disc drives being on separate cables and the CDRW being a primary drive.
If you're really worried about it you could also buy a board with additional IDE channels or a drive controller, and put everything on its own channel.
Best idea I think is putting them both on the same cable...very simplistic logic but if you have the CDRW piggybacked onto the hard drive, it would only have to send data through one cable, therefore making it a shorter trip. Just my opinion <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">
No offense but you are mistaken here.Quote:
Originally posted by JMM:
<STRONG>Best idea I think is putting them both on the same cable...very simplistic logic but if you have the CDRW piggybacked onto the hard drive, it would only have to send data through one cable, therefore making it a shorter trip. Just my opinion <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0"></STRONG>
That may SEEM logical, but in actual fact, the information is NEVER going to go directly from CD to CDRW--the computer doesn't work that way. After being read from the CD, it goes to the mobo, through the RAM, possibly the chip, then through a cable to the hard drive, and then BACK to the mobo, back through the chip and ram, back through the mobo and along the cable to the CDRW. So in reality, chaining the two to the same cable could cut your speed by 75% or more rather than increasing it, as it has to transmit two to four times along its length, and can't send both ways simultaneously.
(Incidentally, does anybody know if using an ATA-100 cable might help with this at all?)
(post self-edited twice for clarity)
So in theory, attaching each device to its own IDE channel would enable transfers to be sent from one cable to the next - which would be faster that sending it down the same cable twice. Thanks Clam, makes sense.Quote:
Originally posted by Wayward Clam:
<STRONG>...in reality, chaining the two to the same cable could cut your speed by 75% or more rather than increasing it, as it has to transmit two to four times along its length, and can't send both ways simultaneously...</STRONG>
I think this was what I'd read. Does anyone else have an opinion on this?
I have noticed that moving files from HD to HD on the same cable is slower than from cable to cable. So I would assume it would be the same for CD's. Also, I don't believe CD's support the ATA100 speed, so I don't think you would get any benefit from a ATA100 card.
Thanks guys. I think that we all came to the same conclusions on this!
Putting them on the same cable is a bad idea, just as putting your burner on the same cable ad your HDD is a bad idea. I forget the exact explanation (too damn long ago, too many beers ago) but it boiled down to possible data "collisions" and the actual bandwidth of the IDE interface.
This is, of course, all n/a for SCSI.
It would depend if the CD-RW had a BURN proof system and the overall system specs.
I would set the Hard disk to Primary Master on IDE 1, connect the CD-ROM to the hard disk as a slave. Then put the CDRW as a master on its own channel, that way if you are copying from either the HDD or the CDROM, you are getting maximum transfer to the CDRW.
I personally have 2 hard disk, a CDRW and a DVD drive and have no problems.
Either way, the CDRW should always be set to Master.