jaster <jaster@home.net> wrote
> Pete wrote

>> I have a typical P4 2.6 system with 2 IDE connectors on my
>> motherboard. I have 2 DVD burners and 1 IDE hard disk (main system
>> drive) on my machine. All the drives are installed and working OK
>> but I get problems with access speeds / bandwidth when I use the
>> burner that is on the same channel as the hard disk.

>> I have heard that for multiple simultaneous burners it's best that
>> the burners are on separate IDE channels. I happen to have an old
>> ABIT hot rod 100 raid controller card and was going to hook the main
>> IDE drive up to this so that I could have the burners connected as
>> masters on each of the ide channels on the motherboard and no
>> secondary devices connected at all.

>> Does this make sense?

>> Do I need to change any bios settings to set the abit raid PCI card
>> up as a master device?

>> Is there a better way of doing this?

>> Will the Abit hot rod 100 card be OK?

>> Will accessing my prmary hard disk through the
>> Abit card degrade hard disk access speeds?

>> Will using a card like the Abit raid controller on the PCI bus degrade
>> other PCI or AGP devices because it may be a bandwidth hog?

> I don't know about the Abit raid controller card but you only have the one HD.

> I thought the reccommendation was to put
> similiar speed devices on the same IDE channels.

Nope, that is VERY obsolete.

> HD is on PIO 4 or ATA 100/133 while DVDs are usually ATA 33/66 at best.

That last isnt right with the latest 16X burners.

> Putting a ATA 100 with ATA 33 on the
> same IDE slows traffic on the channel.

Nope, hasnt done for a VERY long time now.

> HDs on IDE1 and DVDs on IDE2.

> From a use point of view how frequent will
> you use you HD versus using either DVD?

>> Please feel free to respond to any or all of the points i have raised.

>> Any other advice / issues?