PRIMARY VS SECONDRY:MASTER/SLAVE

[Guest]

i am a little uneducated in setting up hardware....my current machine has a 6.4GB quantum...and a 48x CD ROM....i'm expecting a 45GB IBM GXP...and a plextor 16/10/40....the question is....i'vr read a lot in this forum about master and slave setup....but i don't really understand it....so if anyone could help....what's the best way to put in these 4 IDE drives....P.S. ....i know the old hard drive will slow performance....but i was thinking of keeping it for MP3s...so that i can also carry it around.......thanks..
FORGIVE MY IGNORANCE...

 

[RocKo]

What kind of motherboard you have...
Anyways Just connect your stuff in the appropriate IDE slot, then SET the jumpers in your 45GB IBM GXP to MASTER
(if you want it master.. which is a good idea.) and your old hard drive to SLAVE. after doing jumpers, go into your BIOS and setup master/slave.

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red> 😎

 

[Guest]

what about the CDROM and the CDRW....and thanks for the tip....

 

[RocKo]

Well lets say you have 2 onboard IDE connectors:
use the First one for your Hard Drives(your cable should have 3 connecting thingis) The END at your secondary(slave), and other to the primary(master), and Use the other onboard IDE to connect your cd-rom and cd-w, doesint really master what ends yo connect it to...

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red> 😎

 

[stable]

The long and short of it are as follows:

Most motherboards include (at least) two IDE connectors.

The first connector is always referred to as the PRIMARY IDE connector and the SECOND as the SECONDARY IDE connector.

Each connector can support up to two disk drives, a 'master' drive and a 'slave' drive.

These settings are controlled both in the BIOS of the motherboard and by setting jumpers on the disk devices themselves.

As an example, if you have two drives connected on the same cable which connects to the PRIMARY IDE interface, one device MUST be set to be the 'master' and the other MUST be the 'slave'. If both drives are set (by the jumpers on the back of these drives) to both be 'Master' or both be 'slave' on the same cable, neither device will work.

Usually, you would setup your hard disk to always be the 'master' and any secondary devices like a CD-ROM drive to be the slave. If you only have two devices, (let's say a hard drive and a CD-ROM) your best bet is to put each device on it's own cable. Then you could have the Hard disk be the 'Master' of the PRIMARY IDE interface and the CD-ROM could be the 'Master' of the SECONDARY IDE interface. Thus, each drive could achieve it's maximum throughput as each drive would be occupying it's own IDE interface to the motherboard.

When devices share an interface, you should remember that they must also share the available bandwidth of that interface. In such a case, if a hard disk were writing information from and to RAM, there would only be whatever bandwidth was leftover for the CD-ROM to use.

As for your new IBM drive, you should ensure that your IDE connectors can support ATA-100. This is a fairly new standard that requires a 'faster than normal' IDE interface. While the drive WILL work on the older IDE connectors, it will run slower than it's capabilities due to the restrictions in bandwidth of that port. Most older systems have IDE connectors that support up to 33MB/second (otherwise known as ATA-33). The newest computers have IDE connectors to support ATA-33, ATA-66 or the latest standard ATA-100. You will have to check with your motherboard manufacturer to find out which connection type you have. Additionally, you can always add a new ATA-100, IDE controller to your older computer that will give you at least 2 NEW IDE connections (that again, each support a master and a slave drive) to take advantage of the added speed when using the newer disk drives (like the IBM DeskStar 75GXP, ATA-100 disk drives). These cards are available from Promise as well as others.

This is about as basic of an explanation as I could think of on short notice. I hope it answers your questions.

Steve Benoit


Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by stable on 02/13/01 10:09 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[RocKo]

umm.. what he said.. sheesh.
just put hard disks on the primary ide controller.
and cdrom and cdwriter on secondary ide controller.

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red> 😎

 

[Guest]

wow....its more than i wished for.....thanks man.....
but u see.....simple...which would be better......both hard drives on primary....and CDROM and CDRW on the secondry?????
if yes...which should be master and which should be slave....
and if not....should i put one drive on each separate IDE controller......????/
thanks again...

 

[RocKo]

Like I said Earlier, -:
both hard drives on IDE1(PRIMARY)
new HD as MASTER and old HD as SLAVE

CD-ROM and CD-Writer on IDE2(SECONDARY)
doeisnt really matter which one is slave/master, BUT if you want better transfer speeds on either one put them master first. Eg: if you have a fast burner you might wanna put it master so information gets to burner faster...

Oh and if you have more then 2 IDE controllers then use all of them Eg: if you have 4 IDE controllers, use all of them and set them ALL MASTER no slaves...

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red> 😎

 

[stable]

Darn.. You guys just type faster than I do... When I started that post, there weren't any replies.... lol

Steve

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[RocKo]

Well... you almost wrote a book on IDE controllers jeez, all you forgot to mention was ATA33/66/100 .... bah, still that about covers the questions...

<font color=red><b>-RocKo</b></font color=red> 😎