IDE Configuration? What is the best configuration for 4 drives?

[jimhannon]

Hi all,
I need some help in getting the best configuration setup for my drives. I have a IBM 40gig hard drive, an Acer 50x CDROM drive, a Iomega CDRW drive and a Iomega Zip drive. Which should be on the IDE #1 with the Hard drive? Then of course, which other remaining drives should be on IDE #2? Also which config for the drives? Hard drive master, then CDROM slave? On IDE #2, should one be the master and then slave? Or does one need to be slave and then Cable Select? Questions, questions.
thanks to all for the help.

Jim

[justbarron]

Everyone has their own opinion, but, I would put the hard drive and cdrom on the primary ide (HD as master, CD as slave) and the cdrw and zip on secondary ide (CDRW as master and ZIP as slave).

justbarron

[Insanepyro69]

have a IBM 40gig hard drive, an Acer 50x CDROM drive, a Iomega CDRW drive and a Iomega Zip drive. Which should be on the IDE #1 with the Hard drive? Then of course, which other remaining drives should be on IDE #2? Also which config for the drives? Hard drive master, then CDROM slave? On IDE #2, should one be the master and then slave? Or does one need to be slave and then Cable Select? Questions, questions.

Well I've Always found that hooking cd-roms on the same ide seems to bring better faster preformance exspecially when burning.

If i was you i would but your harddrive on ide1 set to master then if your iomega zip drive supoorts ide put it on ide2. Then run the cd-rom on the ide2 put them both on cable select.

Just a matter of the opinion i guess.

Hope i help atleast a little

[Cricket]

Hi jimhannon,

Drive set up does tend to be personal preference, but sometimes it's decided by the system itself...some setups work better than others. You may have to experiment.

Your hard drive should obviously be installed on the primary IDE channel set to CS and connected to the black connector if you're using an ATA66/100 80 wire IDE cable or set to master if using a ATA33 40 wire IDE cable.

The CD-RW and CD-ROM are usually ATA33 devices (although I think there are a few ATA66 CD-ROM and CD-RW drives available) and they would usually be used with the older ATA33 40 wire IDE cable and set to master or slave. Most CD-RW drives like to be installed as master on the secondary IDE channel. If you place the CD-ROM drive on the secondary channel as slave to the CD-RW, you might not be able to do CD to CD on-the-fly burning. If you do a lot of CD to CD burning, it would be a good idea to put the 2 drives on separate channels (CD-RW as master on the secondary IDE channel and the CD-ROM as slave on the primary IDE channel).

I don't have a lot of experience with internal Zip drives and don't know if they are ATA66/100 capable (probably not). You should be able to place the Zip drive as slave to either the hard drive or CD-RW without too much trouble, just remember to jumper it properly. Try going through the Zip manual and see if there is a preferred location.

Cricket

[Lord Prism]

I end up making A LOT of coasters unless I set up my system like this:

Hard drive - Maxtor 20Gb (ATA100, 7200rpm)- Pri-Master
Zip drive - Iomega Zip 100MB (internal) - Pri-Slave
CD Burner - Mat****a CD-R CW-7582 - Sec-Master
CDROM – Sony 48x CD-ROM - Sec-Slave

Good Luck,

[phatboi]

i had my system with my Harddrive as primary master and my zip as primary slave, and my cd rom as sec. master and my cdrw as sec. slave. it ran great but after a while i couldn't do cd to cd burning. so i had to put the cdrw and cd rom on different ide controllers. you can make either one a primary slave and a secondary master. but i wouldn't put them on the same ide controller. i have another ide controller b/c i got another harddrive. and i set them on separate controllers and now they work great.