Building a New PC!

  • Thread starter Thread starter ShaneSelby
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crosstudio said:
Kingston:
what difference does separate IDE cables for each HD make? are both HDs wired to the same pins? if so, how does the motherboard distinguish between the master and slave drive?
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It can a pain in the ass to fit the cables right, because the hardrives can be far from the optical drives depending on your case, but each of the two IDE connecters are on their own channels. Each IDE channel can support two devices. But, only one device can be accessed at once on each channel. By putting the drives on seperate channels, you theoretically allow simultaneous access to both drives.

If you look in your device manager, you'll notice that there is both a primary and secondary IDE channel, as well as the controller for the two channels. Usually one connector is blue and one is black, i believe black represents the primary channel, though it could be the other way around, i don't think it makes much of a difference though.

Eric
 
Technically, the master drive should go on the end of the IDE cable, but generally it doesn't matter. I have never found a case where it did. The simletaneous drive access is key when you want a high performance system. This is the reason they tell you to put your CR-ROM and CD-R drive on seperate IDE channels if you are doing disc-to-disc copies, and not to have your CD-R drive on the same channel as your C: drive. The only way to have 3 drives independantly right now is to buy a motherboard that has either 4 IDE channels or a motherboard that has 2 IDE channels and 2 IDE RAID channels, which can function as a non-RAID device.
 
Are we forgetting something here. There are several options. PCI/ATA IDE or SCSI cards will give extra channels. To have multiple Master/Slave drive combinations, for multiple OS and Audio drives, TRIOS II is an option, although a simple 3 way toggle switch wired to the jumpers will do the same thing in conjuction with an ATA card. I run this set up, as it eliminates any additional drivers and software required by TRIOS. You can by these premade at places like www.tigerdirect.com that fit in a 5 1/2" drivebay. Or for 10 bucks at radio shack do it yourself.

I just lost a 10 gig WD ATA/66. Now running Maxtor ATA100 drives NO problems here. Seagates are nice, and quiet (Barracuda IV).

Another Alternative would to buy a USB CD/RW, and eliminate the problem, as well as giving you a mobile option if you happen to score a great deal on a laptop with no burner.
 
fierojoe said:
I have yet to this date not one single Seagate IDE drive that has NOT failed on me... BEWARE SEAGATE IDE DRIVES!
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Amen to that!

I've been in the computer consulting business for a long time, and have been burned repeatedly by Seagate IDE drives. I will NOT use them, no matter how desparate I am for a drive. Their SCSI drives perform well, but the IDE are pure, unreliable trash.

Get as much processor and board power as you can possibly afford, then get a long use from it. This will extend the time before the next upgrade cycle. The board is all Intel, including the chipset, so you should have minimal compatibility problems (USB, sound, AGP), which is the reason to buy Intel in the first place.
 
bgavin said:
I've been in the computer consulting business for a long time, and have been burned repeatedly by Seagate IDE drives. I will NOT use them, no matter how desparate I am for a drive. Their SCSI drives perform well, but the IDE are pure, unreliable trash.
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Preach it brother! Horrible does not come close to saying what my experience has been with Seagate drives... AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!
 
I haven't heard anything about that. Doesn't matter to me one way or the other, I'm a Western Digital man. :)
 
I think I do remember hearing something about that, but my memory isn't the best.
 
So this car you have, it wouldn't happen to be a Fiero would it?

85GT here;)
 
ds21 said:
So this car you have, it wouldn't happen to be a Fiero would it?

85GT here;)
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No no no no no... It's a Civic :D JUST KIDDING!!! Check out my page:
http://www.fierojoe.com/

'86 SE Here. Had 2 other '84s as well, but one went to the scrap yard this year (my most loved Fiero), and the other was a parts car.
 
So with all the talk about RAID 0 and 1, Mb of Hard Drive cache, etc., and the difference they make, I take it the speed of the disk(at least with a 7200rpm drive) isn't currently the bottleneck in how fast information can be written to a drive, as long as it has a lot of consecutive open space, no?

Ptron
 
right, thats why SATA is the way to go now. drive makers use platter density to get faster speeds out of 7200, and they've pasted the 133 mark, but as fierojoe says if you want security you want RAID-1 which is actually slower in writing, than a single disk, RAID-0 (Which is not really RAID) is faster, but if your going for faster get SATA, the prices of drives have come down!
 
I think SATA needs to come down before it will be worth it. Right now I am running a P4 2.7G(oc) 1G of RAM and RAID 0 (fast, but unsafe) and my largest project has 86 tracks in SF Acid with real time effects on all of them and I can play through the whole thing with no glitches on a cheap sound card. Thats fast enough for me, so until SATA comes down in price, I'll stick with what I have.
 
That's what I thought about 3-4 weeks ago but check the current prices. you can get 120MB SATA for about $125.00
 
Well, for all practical purposes, SATA would be an entire rebuild for me. I'm running a P4 with a 400 MHz FSB, so if I were to make the jump to SATA then I would want to get a new board that has SATA on it instead of getting an add-in card. And when I get a new board, I may as well get a board that has an 800MHz FSB, which meens I need a new Processor and new RAM And since I got a new processor and RAM, I would need to get a new video card because my ATI Radeon 7500 just wouldn't do that justice then... :D I don't like to do anyting in half-measures, so for now my ATA-100 RAID works. I may make the jump here pretty soon, once prices come down on 800MHz FSB P4s.
 
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