IDE Setup - Please Help!

[PCGuy760]

I am a bit confused how I should set up my Drives on a new PC I am building. I have an ECS K7VZA Motherboard, which has :

1x UMDA100 IDE Port (2 devices)
1x UDMA33-66 IDE Port (2 devices)

I have the following drives that need to be setup, but I am not sure which should be master, slave, primary or secondary???

Maxtor DiamondMax 40Gb ATA100 HDD
Liteon 16x10x40 CD Writer
Buslink 52x CD ROM
Pioneer 10x DVD ROM

Please tell me which is the best setup. Remember I have two UDMA 100 and two UDMA33-66.

Thanks in advance!

[Atomic Rooster]

How about:

IDE 1 HDD master, CDRW slave
IDE 2 52x CD master, DVD slave

[Sterling_Aug]

If you put the CDRW on IDE 1, then you will not get the full ATA-100 speed out of the hard drive. It will slow down to the spped of the CDRW.

Why would you need 3 CDROM anyways? Sell the 52X CDROM and use the DVD ROM as the drive for copying CD's. Then buy another ATA-100 hard drive.

[ArtShapiro]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sterling_Aug
[B]If you put the CDRW on IDE 1, then you will not get the full ATA-100 speed out of the hard drive. It will slow down to the spped of the CDRW.

I disagree, based on the specific enquiry I made in the hard drive forum, and to which moderator Fingers cited a reference at the Seagate (I think) support URL.

The assertion is made on that page that if mixed-mode devices are hung off the same IDE port, then the faster device will not, in fact, slow down to the speed of the slower drive.

Unless an equally authoritative source to the contrary can be cited, this popularly held belief is apparently incorrect.

Art

[PCGuy760]

Unfortunately, I am still waiting on my Graphics Card for my system, so I cannot tell you guys which configuration worked best, but do yall think that I should just try different configurations and Benchmark all the drives with something like say, Sisoft Sandra or CD Speed until I discover which is optimum???

Oh yes, I do want to keep the CD ROM cos I dont want to wear out my DVD or CDRW from playing Music CDs or VideoCDs. Hence, I want to use the DVD for DVDs and CDRW for burning. Do you guys think that is strange of me??!

Thanks for all the replies thus far!

[Timbob505]

Yes, that is strange. I don't think you are gonna wear out your dvd or cdrw any sooner just by using it! You could just keep it around in case something happens to one of your other drives, but I haven't had a cdrom fail that wasn't obsolete. (like a 2x failed me earlier this year...it was time to upgrade it!!!)


Timbob

[piyopiyo13]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ArtShapiro
[B]

Originally posted by Sterling_Aug
If you put the CDRW on IDE 1, then you will not get the full ATA-100 speed out of the hard drive. It will slow down to the spped of the CDRW.

I disagree, based on the specific enquiry I made in the hard drive forum, and to which moderator Fingers cited a reference at the Seagate (I think) support URL.

The assertion is made on that page that if mixed-mode devices are hung off the same IDE port, then the faster device will not, in fact, slow down to the speed of the slower drive.

Unless an equally authoritative source to the contrary can be cited, this popularly held belief is apparently incorrect.

Art

Actually, it says inn my Abit Kg7-RAID manual that an IDE hard drive and a CD drive should not be placed on the same IDE port, so I'm still not so sure which way it goes.