wheelema
Boner-obo
Came across some very interesting observations...
...and...
...also...
To rephrase this advice, when you have two devices on a single IDE cable, and one of them is significantly slower than the other (in this example the DVD moves slow and the HDD moves fast), than both will move at the slowest throughput. Yoke your HDD together, and your optical drives together.
...and last but not least...
Here is the complete article.
The WD Raptors are super-fast and reliable, but can add a lot of heat to your system, which is why I tend to hold off on the Raptor unless it’s a system that really needs the 10,000 rpm.
...and...
Today’s 7,200 and 10,000 rpm hard drives release an incredible amount of heat. Keeping your hard drives cool is critical for both hard drive integrity and system stability. You should never install two hard drives in adjacent bays – leave space in-between. Well designed cases with the front intake fan blowing over the hard drive bays make HDD placement even easier. Since standard fans have a central portion where air does not move well, I usually have my hard drives at the top edge and bottom edge of my fan, ensuring that the drive receives the maximum amount of cooling. Also recall that heat rises and so the lower drive will usually run cooler than drive above. With good cooling, you’ll be able to maintain both drives with super reliability, but recall that the difference of five degrees can be a difference of 10 to 15% failure rate, and if it’s your hard drive that fails, that’s 100% to you.
...also...
With IDE, drives always are controlled by the slowest controller on the channel. That is to say that even though IDE controllers cannot simultaneously access two devices (which SCSI can), a setup where you have your HDD on master and your DVD-R as slave will be slower than having them as the master drive on two different channels.
To rephrase this advice, when you have two devices on a single IDE cable, and one of them is significantly slower than the other (in this example the DVD moves slow and the HDD moves fast), than both will move at the slowest throughput. Yoke your HDD together, and your optical drives together.
...and last but not least...
Video cards, particularly today’s high-speed GPUs emit a lot of radio frequency interference (RFI) that can interfere with your sound card’s performance by adding extra noise and buzz. For that reason, you always want to install your sound card in the PCI slot as far as possible from the video card in order to maximize audio quality. It’s a simple intervention that’s missed by many.
Here is the complete article.