Most of the computers I've ever built had two hard drives. I always install the master on the cable connector closest to the motherboard, and the slave on the far end. I don't recall having problems with this setup, which I learned because I have had motherboards that would not recognize a master if it was on the end. Now, I have read from a respected data-recovery source that the slave should in fact be on the connector closest to the motherboard and the master on the end. Is this accurate? What do the experienced people who frequent this list know?
Thanks in advance.
Dotan Cohen
On 8/29/07, Dotan Cohen dotancohen@gmail.com wrote:
Most of the computers I've ever built had two hard drives. I always install the master on the cable connector closest to the motherboard, and the slave on the far end. I don't recall having problems with this setup, which I learned because I have had motherboards that would not recognize a master if it was on the end. Now, I have read from a respected data-recovery source that the slave should in fact be on the connector closest to the motherboard and the master on the end. Is this accurate? What do the experienced people who frequent this list know?
Thanks in advance.
Dotan Cohen
If you set a drive to cable select, the drive at the end of the IDE ribbon cable will be master, and the one in the middle will be slave. Of course you can choose to pin a drive master and place it in the middle if you wish and the slave pinned accordingly and set at the end. But the norm is master at the end.
Jacques B.
Dotan Cohen kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika keskiviikko, 29. elokuuta 2007):
I always install the master on the cable connector closest to the motherboard, and the slave on the far end.
That's the old Cable Select configuration used with 40-conductor cables defined in ATA-4 and earlier specifications.
I have read from a respected data-recovery source that the slave should in fact be on the connector closest to the motherboard and the master on the end.
That's the Cable Select setup for ATA-5 and later, used with 80-conductor cables.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment#Cable_select
If you set master/slave with jumpers instead of using CS the master/slave location shouldn't matter if you have two drives, but if you have only one drive it should be at the end of the cable to reduce electrical interference.
Dotan Cohen wrote:
Most of the computers I've ever built had two hard drives. I always install the master on the cable connector closest to the motherboard, and the slave on the far end. I don't recall having problems with this setup, which I learned because I have had motherboards that would not recognize a master if it was on the end. Now, I have read from a respected data-recovery source that the slave should in fact be on the connector closest to the motherboard and the master on the end. Is this accurate? What do the experienced people who frequent this list know?
Thanks in advance.
Dotan Cohen
It is less critical when you have two drives, but when you have one drive, not putting it at the end of the cable can cause problems because of noise on the cable, among other things. If you are using cable select (CS), you do not have a choice - the connector at the end of the cable is the one wired to select the drive as the master. In any case, it doesn't hurt, and in some cases helps, to have the master at the end of the cable.
One other thing to think about - if you do not have optical drives, or if you have fast access optical drives, it can be beneficial to have each hard drive on its own controller. Unless you are stuck with one of the controller that does not allow access to both IDE interfaces at the same time, or does not support fast access on both interfaces, it can speed up overall disk access. This is especially true when copying or moving data between drives.
Mikkel
On 29/08/2007, Mikkel L. Ellertson mikkel@infinity-ltd.com wrote:
Dotan Cohen wrote:
Most of the computers I've ever built had two hard drives. I always install the master on the cable connector closest to the motherboard, and the slave on the far end. I don't recall having problems with this setup, which I learned because I have had motherboards that would not recognize a master if it was on the end. Now, I have read from a respected data-recovery source that the slave should in fact be on the connector closest to the motherboard and the master on the end. Is this accurate? What do the experienced people who frequent this list know?
Thanks in advance.
Dotan Cohen
It is less critical when you have two drives, but when you have one drive, not putting it at the end of the cable can cause problems because of noise on the cable, among other things. If you are using cable select (CS), you do not have a choice - the connector at the end of the cable is the one wired to select the drive as the master. In any case, it doesn't hurt, and in some cases helps, to have the master at the end of the cable.
One other thing to think about - if you do not have optical drives, or if you have fast access optical drives, it can be beneficial to have each hard drive on its own controller. Unless you are stuck with one of the controller that does not allow access to both IDE interfaces at the same time, or does not support fast access on both interfaces, it can speed up overall disk access. This is especially true when copying or moving data between drives.
Mikkel
Are you suggesting that for a situation with 2 IDE interfaces on the motherboard, two optical drives and two hard drives that each IDE interface have one each hard drive and optical drive? That seems to me would slow down the optical drives, which are faster than the hard drives, as the IDE interface would run at the speed of the slowest device on the interface.
Dotan Cohen
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 29/08/2007, Mikkel L. Ellertson mikkel@infinity-ltd.com wrote:
One other thing to think about - if you do not have optical drives, or if you have fast access optical drives, it can be beneficial to have each hard drive on its own controller. Unless you are stuck with one of the controller that does not allow access to both IDE interfaces at the same time, or does not support fast access on both interfaces, it can speed up overall disk access. This is especially true when copying or moving data between drives.
Mikkel
Are you suggesting that for a situation with 2 IDE interfaces on the motherboard, two optical drives and two hard drives that each IDE interface have one each hard drive and optical drive? That seems to me would slow down the optical drives, which are faster than the hard drives, as the IDE interface would run at the speed of the slowest device on the interface.
Dotan Cohen
In my experience, optical drives tend to be slower then hard drives, not faster. But the important part are the data transfer rate, the IDE chipset, and what you are accessing. If the hard drive and optical drive both have the same max transfer speed, or the interface can use different rates for each device, then it can be an advantage because most system do more hard drive access then optical drive access. (Take a look at the DMA modes supported by the better double layer DVD drives...) As long as the optical drives do not force a slower transfer rate for both devices on the cable, and you do not do a lot of reading/writing to/from the optical drive, it can speed up hard drive access. (Not the timing reported by hdparm, but real world access when accessing both drives at once.)
There are a few things to watch out for: Writing data to an optical drive on the same interface as the drive the data is coming from may be a problem, especially if the optical drive has a small buffer. Connecting a slower transfer speed optical drive with a fast hard drive when the interface does not support different speeds for different devices. Cases where you have heavy optical drive access. Broken IDE chipsets that do not support data transfer on both IDE interfaces at the same time.
You have to know your hardware, and your usage, to know if this configuration will be helpful to you. Even when you only have 2 hard drives, and no optical drives, it will not help if you have to serialize command to the IDE interface, or if the second interface does not support the faster transfer rates that the drives do. Then again, if you are using SATA drives, none of this applies anyway.
Mikkel
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