IDE channel question..

[steppin_razor]

If you have two hard drives and two CD/DVD drivers, what is the best IDE configuration?

I assume that each hard drive should be on its own channel as the master with the CD / DVD drive as the slave...

[BJ_M]

i would put both hard drives on 1 channel and both dvd/cd players on other channel

[wulf109]

Both HD's should be on the same channel as master and slave,the Cd's should be on the secondary channel as master and slave. NEVER mix HD and CD on the same channel.

[Treebeard]

Not intending to hijack the post but on a related question:

If you have 2 HD's and 1 is 5400rpm and the other is 7200rpm.

which is better to have as master?
and does it matter which HD the OS is on.

im getting a capture card shortly and wanted a heads up.

[Nelson37]

If you MUST mix drives, the faster one should be Master. The Master/Slave relationship occurs at the Hardware level and is invisible to the OS. As a general rule, faster drive would go to OS but for Video capture, I would reverse that. However, if you have your OS drive on the same channel as your capture drive you will almost certainly drop frames when captureing.

[steppin_razor]

Thanks for the advice!...

[rkr1958]

One thing you might consider if you have an open PCI slot is to buy an IDE controller card and add two more channels. That way each device can be master and you don't have to worry about mixing devices. 9-months or so ago this is what I did as a last attempt to fix an "instability" problem I was having and it worked. I paid $30 bucks or so for the card.