Hard Drive and CDRom running of of same IDE controller, is this a bad thing?

RagingSamster

RagingSamster

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Installed a new DVD burner in my system (See [H]ot deals for screaming offer from staples)

I'm wondering if there would be any performance increase if I moved the system disk to it's own cable and plug my CDRW and DVDRW to the other channel on the mobo.

Thoughts? Opinions? Flames?
 
I wouldn't say performance increase, rather more stability is likely. Its a good idea, though many have never had a problem either way.:cool:
 
Stability :rolleyes: I don't think I quite understand what stability has to do with it and how performance will not be effected...

A Couple possible setups:

1.

Channel 1 - DVDRW
Channel 2 - HD, CDRW

Pros: HD-DVDRW Transfers will be faster
Cons: HD-CDRW Transfers will be slower

2.

Channel 1 - HD
Channel 2 - DVDRW, CDRW

Pros: All transfers to and from HD to optical storage will be faster
Cons: Interoptical device transfer will be slower (how much of that do you do anyway)

So, I would go with number 2, and yes there will be a performance increase, that is if the IDE bus is a bottleneck.
 
Oy. When will the myth that having two opticals on the same channel affects cross-drive transfers just die?!

Anyway, right now, you're slowing your hard drive down to ATA/33 transfer rates. Put the CD-RW and DVD-RW together.
 
Originally posted by Vertigo Acid
Stability :rolleyes: I don't think I quite understand what stability has to do with it and how performance will not be effected...
Click to expand...

Okay:rolleyes: , so I guess I could reword it to use both terms to get my point across because I was obviously being so obtuse that it warranted an additional response. In short, I agree with what you said, and it was really what I was trying to say.

Anyway, thank you for clearing that up......................:p :)
 
Originally posted by RagingSamster
Thanks guys, I love this place so much it makes me [H]ard!
Click to expand...

Don't love it too much or we'll get a restraining order.
 
Originally posted by Stiletto One
Oy. When will the myth that having two opticals on the same channel affects cross-drive transfers just die?!

Anyway, right now, you're slowing your hard drive down to ATA/33 transfer rates. Put the CD-RW and DVD-RW together.
Click to expand...

I thought I was the only one who laughed hysterically when I see people ask if they can still do disc to disc with the drives on the same channel. I wish I still had my old Mitsumi CD-R 1x drive that had no burnproof. I could still do disc to disc.
 
Originally posted by Stiletto One
Anyway, right now, you're slowing your hard drive down to ATA/33 transfer rates. Put the CD-RW and DVD-RW together.
Click to expand...


Not entirely true, access to the CDR is a DMA mode2 (33MB/s), so whenever the CDR is accessed, the HDD has to wait (ATA|ATAPI being sequential one at a time access) however
Independent Device Timing allows two devices to share a channel each at their own maximum speed, for the HDD thats probably DMA mode5 (100MB/s)

but the thing is, youd need to saturate the bus to notice that slowdown, normally easier said than done

BusTrace IDE/ATAPI Bus Utilixzation Monitor (Freeware)


now there is a caveat to Independent Device Timing, it wont share the channel if one device is PIO and the other DMA, it will then kick the DMA capable device down to PIO mode as well
and since windows will degrade a device that has a problem to PIO, Independent Device Timing will degrade both


all said and done, you wouldnt have any issues with modern CDRW burning software and both the HDD (source) and CDRW (target) on the same channel, but there is a slight advantage under very limited circumstances to combine the opticals on the same channel
 
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