(4) IDE channel set up pls

Hi ... I am using windows xp pro sp2 full with my ABIT IC7 MAX 3 board , I am trying to figure out which is the best way to set up all these drives , At the moment I have setted up 2 hard drives ( both seagate 120gb , 200gb ATA-100 / IDE Hard Drive) and 2 Optical drives ( Plextor and Pioneer ) I have my 200gb as IDE channel 1 master , also this is where windows is install on and I have the 120gb as IDE channel 1 slave , My optical drives goes like this , Plextor IDE channel 2 master and Pioneer IDE channel 2 slave , Now is this the best way to go about it ? Because I heard its not , Thanks

 

That's the way mine is set up and have had zero problems.

 

Hi ... I thought I have my set up correctly , I am just waiting to hear from other source as to why it isn't the best way to go about it , Will keep you posted once I hear from other source , Thanks

 

I always have my machines set with the hard drives as masters on each IDE channel and the CD and Zip drives as slaves. Everything’s been stable and never had any problems.

Either choice of setup seems equally stable. The only reason I choose to have things the way I do is from a belief that copying from one hard drive to the other may be quicker with the hard drives on different IDE channels. I regularly do a lot of writing from one to the other for backing up my data partition and cloning of entire OSse.

Most modern motherboards support different speeds of drives on the same IDE channel without slowing the faster drive down to the maximum speed of the slower. 5-6 years ago this was not the case and this is why you will still see many recommendations not to mix different speeds of drives on the same channel.

I have tried things with both hard drives on the same channel and have to honestly say there was not a noticeable difference. However I do notice a difference in moving data and cloning from IDE drives to my SATA ones. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confPerformance-c.html