quick question about master-slave setup

[spiritgumm]

For two dvd writers, what's the optimum combo? Master-Slave? CableSelect-Slave? CableSel-CableSel?
My new Dell computer has a Philips/Benq dvd drive set (I think) to Cable Select. I'm not sure because there's no info on the drive - it's the far left of the 3 sets of pins. I plugged in a 2nd dvd drive (which was set to Master) into the 2nd ribbon plug, and neither drive was recognized. I changed that drive's 2-pin plug to Slave and they both work. Still, should I switch it to CS to match the Philips (assuming Philips is on CS)? Or switch the Philips to Master (assuming Phil is on CS)?

[kschang]

I think you just don't know what cable-select means.

Cable select means "let the IDE cable decide". In the order they're plugged in, they're master / slave. Usuallly this means that BOTH drives on the same cable should be set to cable select.

If you want a particular device to be master, set it to master, than set the other device to slave.

Personally, I'd say "if it works, leave it alone."

[greymalkin]

If this is a new computer then it may have a SerialATA hard drive. If this is the case then I would put one dvd drive on each IDE controller and set them both as master or CS. That way each drive has it's own dedicated controller.

[jimmalenko]

I'm a believer in Master / Slave if possible, only because it enhances your boot times by about 3-5 seconds by not having to detect which is which. It's not so apparent these days, but a lot of older hard drives and CD-ROMS used to be really picky about the master/slave/CS configs and sometimes you needed to play around a bit before getting everything playing with each other.

These days, CS on both should operate fine however.