Who should be the slave?

meecal

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I will be assembling a computer with a IBM 75GXP Hard Drive, Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM, and a Plextor 16X CD-R.

Which of the two drives, the DVD-ROM or the CD-R, should be the slave and on which channel?

Thanks.
 

Arrow

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If planning to burn HDD to CDRW more:
(First drive is master)
IDE 1: HDD
IDE 2: CDRW, DVD

If copying from DVDROM to CDRW more on the fly:
IDE 1: HDD, DVD
IDE 2: CDRW

Rob
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meecal

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Thanks for the response. I'll probably be copying more from the DVD-ROM to the CDRW.

Two more simple questions...
I read a review which stated that the DVD-ROM being reviewed wouldn't function correctly as a slave drive and Toshiba says that the DVD-ROM should be a master if possible. Are problems w/ DVD-ROMs being set as a slave common?

Also, if burning more from HDD to CDRW, why make the CDRW the master and the DVD-ROM the slave? Could I do it the other way around (see above paragraph)?
 

rd382

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Im in the exact same spot I plan on setting it up this way

IDE 1. 60GB IBM HD
IDE 2. DVD, CDRW
IDE 3. Floppy

i plan on burning CD's from Harddrive to the burner but i also want to have my Cdrom have frist proirity

Is there that big of speed difference between setting the CDRW as slave or master?

<font color=green>I can draw tyte give me the damn crayon!</font color=green>
 

Arrow

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I'm not really sure about the Toshiba case.
All drive manufacturers would want you to set their drives as master, as the master drive has higher priority in tasks over the slave drive connected to the same IDE channel.
You would be able to burn from HDD to CDRW and DVDROM to CDRW either way, but separating the source and destination drives in terms of IDE channels helps eliminate the chance of buffer underruns (new technolgy like Burnproof also help in this matter!).

Rob
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G

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hmm, I think it's a little risky to put a hard drive on the same cable with any other drive, because it might slow down your hard drive?
 

meecal

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I guess the best thing to do is try the different setups...
Will changing the IDE connections (channel and master/slave) of the CD-R, and the DVD-ROM screw up Windows? Or will it simply boot as always, recognizing that the drives are the same and just in different configurations.

I've read a lot of conflicting reports. Just today I read posts from a couple of people stating that they had poor performance from their DVD-ROM when it was a master on the secondary channel with no other devices on that channel. Then they switched it to slave on the primary channel and it worked much better!?!? Sounds backwards, but at least two people mentioned that....

As I'll be using my DVD-ROM for installations (using CD's) I think my first attempted configuration will be HD as primary master, DVD-ROM as secondary master, and CD-R as secondary slave. If I have any problems copying on the fly - which I don't expect with Plextor's BURN-PROOF tech. - I will move the DVD-ROM to primary slave...

If I still have problems, I will put the DVD-ROM back as secondary master and avoid on-the-fly copies; I will simply copy the CD to the HD and then burn off the HD. That shouldn't take long with the 48X read capability of the Toshiba unit (what's a good guess? 2 minutes)

What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?
BTW, I will be using a MSI K7 Master motherboard which utilizes the AMD760 chipset and DDR memory...
 

Crashman

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Former Staff
Actually, they should all be master! That's why I got a SCSI CDRW, so the DVD and HDD could both be masters, and the CDRW would still get a constant signal. But you could also get a PCI IDE controller. Then you can make them all masters and have plenty of places to put an additional drive, such as a zip, backup hard drive, etc. In fact, if you bought a RAID controller, you could have it set up as the boot device, and RAID some drives on it, and then use your onboard controller for the CDRW and DVD.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine
 

meecal

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Crashman,

For the immediate future anyway, I don't plan on buying any additional IDE controllers. So what is your suggested setup with the two onboard IDE channels?
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Well, your CDRW HAS to be the secondary master. And your DVD HAS to be on a separte channel. So that makes the DVD the Primary Slave. Now the problem. The only reason the CDRW HAS to be the secondary master is that IDE can only tansfer data to one device at a time per channel. So if it were Primary slave, every time your hard drive was accessed, it would risk ruining the CD. Now, for the problem-your DVD performance may not be perfect if it is used as primary slave, as it will be trading access time with the hard drive. So whenever you are making CD to CD burns, you will probably want to not use your computer for anything else! And have the screensaver, power amnagement, etc. either disabled or the time set long enough that it will not disturb the process.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine
 

meecal

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Crashman,

I understand what you're saying in theory about sharing access time, but I know my one friend has a Dell computer with three IDE devices (he added the third) on two IDE channels. I've burnt CD's on his computer while watching movies, surfing the net, reading emails, etc. without any problems. With a 1.2 GHz Athlon and 256 MB of DDR memory do you still think I'm going to have problems?
 

Arrow

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With your Plextor 16x (with Burnproof) I doubt that will be a problem.

Rob
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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Well. beloved patriot the last guy said, BurnProof will protect you. I switched to SCSI back in Burnproofs infancy. If you have a settup like I recommended, BurnProof is never needed!

Cast not thine pearls before the swine