jaster <jaster@home.net> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote
>> 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.

> What makes you think he has the latest 16x burners?

I didnt say he did, I was JUST commenting on that claim of yours just above.

> Aren't the PIO 4 DVD burners running off SATA interfaces?

Nope, you can get that if Win decides that its getting too many
errors on the ata cable, it turns dma off in that situation for safety.

>>> 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.

> Well I have 48x CDR and 12x DVD on IDE2 ATA33/ATA66 respectively.
> 2 ATA100 HDs on an ATA 100 IDE1 mb

Irrelevant to that claim you made that hasnt been seen for a very long time.

It is usually more mechanically convenient to have both hard
drives on the one ribbon cable and both optical drives on another,
but there isnt a problem with the ata mode thats possible anymore.

>>> 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?