Re: IDE question

[mike808@users.sourceforge.net]

> I have an ATA100 (fast) and an older non-ATA100 (slow) hard drive sharing
> the same IDE cable.  It is working fine.
> 
> My question: is the slower drive slowing down the faster drive because
> they share the same cable?

Yes. You want to put all your ATA66/100/133 stuff on the same cable.
Also the ATA66 and above use the new 80-wire cables. They use two smaller
wires in the place of a single wire in the older ATA33 cables. Using
an older cable in the new drives drops your drive down to a plain 'ole
ATA33, also. ATA33 drives won't care about the new cable. They'll work fine.

A common scenario is to place the fastest drives on the first IDE controller
and the slower stuff on the second. I don't think CDR, CDRW, and DVD drives
are ATA66 and above, so don't mix your old-style DVD on the same IDE cable
as your fast new drive, either.

In general, you want your CDR/CDRW/DVD on the *other* IDE channel anyway, since
IDE doesn't have a device-to-device channel like SCSI does.

Another reason to use the new ATA66 cables - they are *automatically*
"cable-select" cables. The drive closest to the controller is the "master"
and the end device is the "slave". How is this useful? When you have
two removable hard drive cages, you can jumper them both to" cable select"
and then switch them between bays at will without messing with the M/S
jumpers. :=)

Hope that explains enough for you to figure out an optimal configuration.

Mike808/

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