Is IDE ATA100 Controller Card Needed?

[Bachfire]

My new system will have one IDE hard drive, one IDE DVD Drive and one IDE CDR/W drive. I have read that DVD and CDR/W drives operate more effectively if they are set up as master devices on separate IDE channels.

As my mother board only has two IDE channels, should I invest the $40.00 in a separate ATA100 controller or just daisy chain the DVD and CDR/W drives?

My drives are as follows:

IBM 75GXP 60GB Hard Drive
Plextor 16X/10X/40X CDR/W Drive
Toshiba 12X DVD Drive

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[HawkeyeColt]

I read that also about the drives running more effetively if they are set on their own IDE channels. I think the reason they says this is because burning CDs to CDRs on the fly is better with both set as masters. I personally don't believe that. I like to buck the system. I have my Plextor set as the master and my DVD set as slave. I have no prroblem at all with my setup. What I would try first is setting it up master/slave and if it doesn't work then buy a controller card.

 

[madthumbs]

A controller should only cost about $20.

If you're not goint to do much burning from your DVD to CDRW then I would just daisy chain them.

IDE cards add to the boot process, and may slow down drive recognition in explorer when opening "my computer".

Separate IDE channels are good for transfers from drive to drive because they share bandwidth and have to take turns if sharing an IDE channel. Also, if an ata66 drive is on with an ata33 drive on the same channel they will both run at ata 33. What is nice is that 2 ata100 drives sharing an ata100 ide channel would probably work as well as if they were on seperate channels (current drives).

 

[Bachfire]

I do plan on doing a lot of DVD to CDR/W transfers. So, do you recommend that I purchase a separate two channel controller card?

Also, should I keep my hard drive connected as the master on one of the two channels on my motherboard and connect the DVD and CDR/W units to the two channels on the new controller card? How would you recommend that I set these units up?

 

[Yzzim]

hmm, looks like I posted in your other thread, here's what I posted:

You shouldn't have a problem running the DVD or even the CDRW as a slave. I've got a Teac 12x10x32 as Slave and have yet to burn a coaster (burned over 30 cds so far, just got it 3 weeks ago). I've got my DVD as Master and my CDRW as slave. Make sure DMA is turned on for both drives.

 

[Yzzim]

<< I do plan on doing a lot of DVD to CDR/W transfers. >>



How are you planning on transfering a DVD to a CDRW? If you're going to use your DVD as a normal CD-ROM and copy cds &quot;on-the-fly&quot; then put the DVD drive on a seperate channel than your CDRW