ATA100 and UDMA33 on one cable?

[barrrt]

I am about to upgrade my system, including new MB and HD. I would like to keep my current drive (30GB UDMA33) as a secondary HD and use new ATA100 as my primary. I also have DVD and CDRW on my secondary controller. The question is, can I connect both HD to the primary controller? Should I do that with the ATA100 cable or regular older IDE cable?

Or maybe I should get a MB with 4 EIDE ports (such as AbitKT7A)? How are those ports treated on such MB? On a normal MB, there is a primary and secondary IDE connection (usually Int 14&15). On RAID there are additional two ATA-100 ports. Can I specify via BIOS, which one of those (IDE vs. ATA-100) has the primary drive connected to it? Could I use more than 4 IDE (either ATA-100 or slower) devices at the same time on such MB?

Alternatively, is there a good FAQ on the subject?

Appreciate any help,

Bart

 

[Guest]

<<The question is, can I connect both HD to the primary controller? Should I do that with the ATA100 cable or regular older IDE cable?>>

You can definitly connect botht to the primary controller, but if your hooking them up to a ATA/100 port it will only run at ATA/33 because of your second drive. If it's a ATA/33 port both drives will run at ATA/33, and use the ATA/100 cable as it cuts down on crosstalk and can help data transfer

On boards such as the KT7 Raid, two ports are used for RAID, and the other two are standard IDE ports for slower device i.e. CD-ROM, DVD, CDRW etc. You can turn off the RAID and use all 4 ports as you normally would, but the system will look to the primary RAID port for the boot device.

 

[ApollyonSon]

"If your hooking them up to a ATA/100 port it will only run at ATA/33 because of your second drive." Not to doubt you or anything amdman, I just have a question for you, as I'm here to learn. Let's say you only use the ATA/100 drive to perform read/writes in a given situation using the ATA/100 controller, while the ATA/33 drive sits idle, will it still only run at ATA/33 because of an ATA/33 device attached to the same cable? If so, that would really suck wouldn't it?

An insecure moment becomes a life long torment.

 

[Guest]

Correct. If both drives are attached via the same cable then it will only run at the speed of the slower drive. The only thing you can do is replace the slower drive with a faster one, or hook the slower drive to the secondary port, thus leaving the primary to cruise along at the higher speed.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm...that seems to contradict this..see following:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf.htm

( Go to 'Independent timing....' section )

What about the 'independent device timing' capability of the modern IDE controllers??

...just looking for answers..

Cheers,

hell out






<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by helldiverCDN on 04/27/01 02:14 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

I stand corrected. It would seem that the independant drive timing would do away with that old truth. Thanks for the info.

Nick

 

[barrrt]

Thanks for the info! 🙂

 

[Guest]

I currently have a p3-500 intel 440bx-2 mobo.
The board only supports up to ATA/33, can i connect ata/66 or ata/100 and just have them run at 100? is there any problem with this? I'd really like a bigger HD than 12.1 gig

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

I think the fastest either would run is ata/33 which is the limitation of the MB.
If you are looking for a new HD check out CompUSA store. They usually have deals every couple of weeks, such as a Maxtor 40G 5400rpm ATA/100 HD (including an ATA/100 controller card, which gets around the motherboard limitation), for $99, (rebates and all). Best deal I've seen (so far); and the Maxtor drive is QUIET, you don't know its there.

<b> "Shyt" HAPPENS </b>

 

[Guest]

Just a thought. How about a BIOS upgrade for your MB. Will that get you what you're needing??

I may be wrong :frown: ... but I'm not in doubt.

 

[Guest]

Did the bios update, but the newest one still doesnt, probably through what is now a relatively low front side bus.