ATA Bus Question

dstranathandstranathan
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have a cheap PC I have made into a game server. It has 2 IDE buses.



Right now, IDE bus 1 has...



Master = New ATA/133 fast hard drive (with 8 MB cache)

Slave = Generic CD ROM drive (probably a slower bus that ATA/133, right?)



Question: If the CD ROM drive is a slower device (i.e.; ATA/66, etc), will it make the hard drive perform slower? I mean does the IDE bus 1's controller slow-down to the slowest device's speed ofn the bus?



Would it be better to put the CD ROM drive on IDE bus 2 and set it to Master? That way the hard drive will be on its own dedicated controller, right?



I don't plan on ading any more devices, so I don't care about "wasting" a controller.



Computer specs:



AMD 1.4 GHz

1.0 GB RAM

Maxtor DiamondMax 60 GB 7200 rpm ATA/133 (8 MB cache)

Gigabyte mobo 266 FSB

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    dillardcdillardc Posts: 14member
    Yeah, from what I understand, having the CD ROM on the same ATA channel as the hard drive will slow it down when the CD ROM is being accessed. On my PC, I have my HDs and CD/DVD drives on seperate channels. CD/DVD drives are ATA/33, not ATA/66 or 133 but they have much slower transfer rates and wouldn't even saturate the ATA/33.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by dstranathan

    I have a cheap PC I have made into a game server. It has 2 IDE buses.



    Right now, IDE bus 1 has...



    Master = New ATA/133 fast hard drive (with 8 MB cache)

    Slave = Generic CD ROM drive (probably a slower bus that ATA/133, right?)



    Question: If the CD ROM drive is a slower device (i.e.; ATA/66, etc), will it make the hard drive perform slower? I mean does the IDE bus 1's controller slow-down to the slowest device's speed ofn the bus?



    Would it be better to put the CD ROM drive on IDE bus 2 and set it to Master? That way the hard drive will be on its own dedicated controller, right?



    I don't plan on ading any more devices, so I don't care about "wasting" a controller.



    Computer specs:



    AMD 1.4 GHz

    1.0 GB RAM

    Maxtor DiamondMax 60 GB 7200 rpm ATA/133 (8 MB cache)

    Gigabyte mobo 266 FSB



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