optimum IDE configuration for speed

[dphirschler]

Can you people that can capture at high resolution tell me about your HD configuration? Specifically, I am interested in non-RAID configurations. For instance, my setup is as follows:

HD-20 - Primary master
HD-60 - Secondary master
CDRW - 2nd IDE Primary master
DVDRW - 2nd IDE Secondary master

With this setup, I can capture at a max resolution of 480x480. My HDs are both Maxtor 7200 rpm.

Before I got my 60gig HD, I was able to capture at 720x480 on a 5.7 gig HD (also a Maxtor). My concern is that my IDE configuration could be setup so that each drive performs better. I've considered hooking up the 5.7 gig drive again and using it just for capturing, but I would rather not if I don't have to.

Any advice?


Darryl

[NYPlayer]

Having your hardrives on the same IDE channel is not a good idea. You should make them primary on seperate ide channels.

[Gazorgan]

I bet you your CDRW is only PIO mode 4 capable or UDMA 33. You drives are UDMA 100. If you hook a Harddrive and a CDRW together...both will be UDMA 33.

I bet the DRDR is UDMA 66, same situation with a harddrive connected.

With IDE, the controller is only as fast as the slowest device on the chain.

[ImaWeTodd]

I know you said you don't want RAID and you probably don't want to buy more stuff, but this board was mentioned here and has caught my interest. It gives IDE RAID i believe.

http://www.thetechzone.com/display.php?i=167&p=2

8 Drives 4 ide channels ata133 for $109 including cables

I don't have one but am verrry interested. What to do with all of those drives.

[GenePool_]

NYPlayer & Gazorgan you two seem to disagree.

If you put the hard drives on different buses and then you'll end up with Gazorgan's issue.

If don't separate them they'll fight with each other for bandwidth.

right?

Seems that having them on one bus would be best in this case.

[RabidDog]

I have a similar configuration and would also like to get the best speed out of my hard drives as I am always moving files about. I was led to believe that the speed on the cable is always limited to the speed of the slowest device.(as gazorgan said) Possible solution ? get a cheap $30 ide pci card giving two or more extra channels and then plug each drive into its own channel. Could it be that you are using the other devices while capturing and thus overloading either memory bus or IDE bus?? Also defrag your drive perhaps the bottleneck is not with the drives?

[dphirschler]

Not sure if everybody understands. Nothing is hooked up as a slave. Everything is on its own cable. My motherboard actually has two IDE controllers. In other words, there are two sets of primary and secondary IDE connections.

If my harddrive is not being limited by its connection, then could there be something else slowing it down?


Darryl

[mrtristan]

Both of your secondary drives function as slave drives. Each IDE channel is capable of supporting two devices. The one selected as primary will be the "main" drive and the one selected as secondary will be the "slave" drive. The only difference is the terminology.

As Gazorgan mentioned, the cd/dvd drives will slow down your hard drives, if you separate them. In this case, it's better to keep them on the same channel.

I recently ran into some capturing issues, after updating to DirectX 9.0 and ATI's latest set of drivers. After about two weeks of trying different installation orders and drivers, I was able to capture at 640X480 again, with little frame loss. (1 dropped frame per 13-15 minutes)

A lot of people, including myself, set both hard drives on the same IDE channel. Install the OS on the primary drive and capture to the secondary drive. It might also help to set the swap file to the secondary drive. I found that this works better for my particular system.

It's not unlikely to experience a change in performance, any time you change your hardware configuration. I would suggest a clean OS install. For me, it's easier to start from scratch, than it is to figure out what isn't working with what.

Anyway, you can read this post, to see my installation order.

[dphirschler]

Thank you EVERYBODY! I now got it working beautifully. My new setup is as follows:

IDE-1
primary master: booting HD (20 gig)
primary slave: CDRW
secondary master: DVDRW

IDE-2
primary master: capturing HD (60 gig)

I had no idea that it slowed down to the slowest device on the whole IDE, I just thought it mattered what was on the same cable. With this new setup, I can now capture at 720x480 without dropping frames. Before, my max resolution was 480x480.

Once again, thanks guys. VCDhelp rules!


Darryl