[OT] Connecting two hard drives on same IDE cable

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

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
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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