Best configuration for my IDE hard drives, DVD & CDRW?

[FOOOD]

I’m wanting to know which is the best configuration for my 2 EDIE hard drives, EIDE DVD ROM & EIDE CDRW.

Here’s what I have:

EIDE ATA 100 40Gb Hard disk

EIDE UDMA 66 20Gb Hard disk

EIDE SONY DVD ROM DDU1211 (40/12)

EIDE Yamaha CDRW CRW2100EZ (16/10/40)

My motherboard has 4 IDE ports (I can connect 8 IDE devices).
Is it best (for hard drive speed & CD writer performance) to have each device on their own separate port, using all 4 ports?
Or would it be OK (or better) to just use 2 of the IDE ports for all 4 devices?

If I just used to IDE ports I was thinking of setting it up like this (would this be the best solution?)

IDE port 1
Master - EIDE ATA 100 40Gb Hard disk
Slave - EIDE SONY DVD ROM DDU1211 (40/12)


IDE port 2
Master - EIDE Yamaha CDRW CRW2100EZ (16/10/40)
Slave - EIDE UDMA 66 20Gb Hard disk

I understand that if I had both hard drives on the same port that the ATA 100 hard disk would only run at the slower UDMA 66 (like the 20Hb hard disk). Is this true?

[Wayniac]

If you can conect 8 drives this means you have 2 RAID ports? I'm not sure.

Myc cousin conected his 4 devices as you suggested, and suffered a performance hit as his cd-rom was sharing the ide port with a much-faster hard drive. Worse still, we had trouble enabling "DMA" on the second IDE channel under Win98 OS2. Once enabled the cd-writer wasn't recognised - even scanning for drives in the BIOS proved futile!

This problem dissapeared when I re-connected the drives as suggested in my cd-writer's instructions:

Primary Master = fastest hard drive you've got
Primary Slave = your other hard drive

Secondary Master = CD-ROM/DVD drive
Secondary Slave = CD-Writer

Connecting in this way made no problems at all with copying or BIOS recognition - or DMA!

To be totally honest, I don't know whether or not connecting your drives on their own seperate ports would improve compatibility or performance, or whether mixing ATA-100/66 drives lowers performance.

However, I'd say that if you've got the capability to use ATA-100/RAID then by all means get the most out of your system that you can. Sticking cd-roms together creates less problems than mixing them with hard-drives.

Sorry I can't offer you any more info. Perhaps someone more informed can recommened an even better configuration. :-)

[FOOOD]

Thanx mate!
Yea that's right, 2 of the IDE ports can be used as RAID. But at the moment I don't have RAID set up, I have the ports set up for ATA 100 (it's changeable by altering jumpers on the motherboard).

Thanx fot the advice :D

[Wayniac]

Your welcome, mate.

Iv'e just read something on the following link, regarding the actual difference in everyday operational terms, between ATA-66 and ATA-100 drives. Apparantly due to the current phisical limitations of even the best ATA-100 drives, there's little difference between the two interface standards.

Thus if this info is anything to go by, sticking ATA-100 and ATA-66 drives together is perfectly feasible: the average read sped in both ATA-66 and ATA-100 interfaces is 32MB/sec on a PIII 700MHz (only the "burst" speed is increased with ATA-100, particualar to only a small area of your computing needs).

This situation isn't likely to change within the next couple of years.

####://www.tech-review.com/review.pl?id=184

Now I bet somebody will invent a 48x burner to prove everyone wrong!!