I didn’t find this out until I built my first PC but yes, data transfer on the same IDE channel is serialized. So you want to plan ahead and make sure you place source and target drives on separate IDE channels. That means your CD or DVD burner should be on the opposite IDE channel from the drive you render your video to so your PC and read the drive while its writing to the burner. So place your Windows system drive and CD/DVD-RW on the same IDE channel and your capture drive and CD/DVD-ROM on the same channel.

Note that the newer SATA drives don’t have this problem. It just affects IDE drives.

~jr

If you have firewire or USB2 on your Dell why dont you consider an external HD. I had this same revelation about massive storage space and have 540GB external storage space. I usually keep one of the 160's and my repository of captures, one for pictures and the other for sound effects, music etc. It works out well as long as I remember to backup, backup, backup.

Are there external units that would allow you to house several ide HD's for access. Over the years I've collected a few 40/80G hd's as I've gone to bigger drives.It would be nice to have say 3 or 4 in an external unit all mounted. 1 for os, 1 for paging, 1 for capturing...etc.

Norm

I bought a USB 2 enclosure for about $60. It only holds one drive but it has an IDE plug where you can plug any IDE device into it then connect via USB2. My wife keeps asking my about all that junk under my desk but I keep the cover off the enclosure and when I want to swap another drive it to it I can do it at any time. I believe there must be multi device enclosures available.

As mentioned above SATA drives may be a good alternative and I looked into them as you can set up RAID but they are more expensive and my understanding is you can not mix ATA and SATA drives in the same machine. Your mother board must have SATA plugs or you have to install a PCI SATA card. I understand SATA drives are also faster but again you can not mix them in one machine.

I bought a 160GB IDE drive at Office Max for $60 after rebates. I have a 40GB as my main drive with XP on it and the 160GB as my secondary drive with data files on it and the USB drive as a place to store backup data files.

The only thing I don’t like about the USB drive is the fan in it makes a fair amount of noise so I just shut the drive off unless I am using it. There are also Fire Wire enclosures.

JohnnyRoy --

Very interesting post, and somewhat contradictory to what I've always heard in the past. Which was, basically to keep the hard drives separated from the media drives. The reason explained was that having such different devices in terms of DMA/PIO compatibility & speeds would have the effect of "slowing down" the faster device.

Your reasoning appears very sound, but I'm having trouble reconciling one point that you may able to clear up, and it involves rendering. If I configure things according to your scheme, then I'd have this scenario:

Controller 1 has system drive with video-editing software on primary channel
Controller 1 has DVD burner on secondary channel

Controller 2 has capture drive on primary channel
Controller 2 has CD-R/DVD combo drive on secondary channel

This meets your criteria where the rendering source is on seperate controller from the DVD burner. How is this different from my current configuration of:

Controller 1 has system drive with video-editing software on primary channel
Controller 1 has capture drive on secondary channel

Controller 2 has has DVD burner on primary channel
Controller 2 has CD-R/DVD combo drive on secondary channel

This would also seem to satisy the condition of keeping the rendering source seperate controller from the DVD burner. The wildcard is the rendering software, itself. Is its location (on disc) irrelevant, since the program is probably memory-resident, or does this make a difference in any way?

I'd appreciate any comments that you may have.

Hmmmm --- also: I was thinking that it would be easy enough to test this by swapping things around, but it really wouldn't. The hard drives use the 80-pin ribbon cables, and the CD/DVD devices use the older standard.

What's a mother to do?

> The reason explained was that having such different devices in terms of DMA/PIO compatibility & speeds would have the effect of "slowing down" the faster device

There is some truth to this. I believe it’s the master device that sets the speed of the IDE channel. So you would not want the CD-ROM as master and the HardDrive as slave, but its fine to have the HardDrive as master and the CD-ROM as slave.

> This would also seem to satisy the condition of keeping the rendering source seperate controller from the DVD burner.

Yes, it certainly does keep the capture drive on a separate channel from the DVD burner. I was commenting on your original post about it taking too long to move files from one hard drive to another. So the solution I suggested keeps both the hard drives and burners on separate/opposite IDE channels.

> I was thinking that it would be easy enough to test this by swapping things around, but it really wouldn't. The hard drives use the 80-pin ribbon cables, and the CD/DVD devices use the older standard.

You could always buy another 80-pin cable and use it for the CD/DVD drives. They are upward compatible so feel free to replace the 40-pin cable with an 80-pin one.

~jr

I, too, have labored under the possible misconception that the IDE channel was no faster than the slowest drive installed on that channel and that no burner was as fast as most of the new drives we are seeing today. But then in a recent discussion on the matter, someone offered up that with two drives on the same cable, only one can be talking at a time. If the two drives were on different cables (channel) then there would never be any conflict.
I was hoping to try the other configuration but the mechanics of it are going to take some doing in my case as the distance from the connectors will require two new cables unless I want to just lay it out on the table. THe connector seperation on my drives/burners is about 12-14".
To quote "cbrillow" What's a mother to do?

This link offers some advice.
http://sony.storagesupport.com/cdrw/downloads/IDE%20Config%20Guide_oz.PDF

I think it supports the opinions stated above..

I would be careful with the document that is sited. While it correctly explains which drives should me master and slave, the figure on page 2 is incorrect if you are using 80-pin cables with cable select (CSEL) feature. In that case the master is the drive at the end of the cable and the slave is the drive in the center of the cable. So the picture on page 2 is only correct for 40-pin IDE cables that support cable select and not the newer 80-pin ones. This article explains it in more detail.

~jr

Johnny Roy
After reading my reference more carefully, it is riddled with contradictory statements. Following the links in your article has really brought about more questions concerning cables etc. My new HP machine was delivered with one disc drive and a cdrw drive. They are installed on seperate IDE channels but only the disc drive uses the 80 wire cable. The cdrw use the old 40 wire. I installed a second disc drive and a dvd burner. From what I read in this article, the use of the cable select feature on the old 40wire cable was of no use. I should have set the jumpers on the cdrw and dvd machine to master and slave respectively. Or replaced the cable with a 80 wire unit.
This issue is going to require some more study of your reference. In my case, I will have to replace both cables as the connectors on the 80 wire cable are not far enough apart to reach from a disc drive to one of the burners.
Thanks for the new information.
Kent

Another great site is PCMech.com. They have great tutorials that show you how to build your own PC. If I were you I would throw the 40-pin cable out and get an 80-pin cable. I can’t believe companies like HP are so cheap that they would even use 40-pin cables anymore but I guess they cut corners any way they can.

~jr

I think you hit the nail right on the head. CHEAP is the reason. I am going to replace that cable with an 80 wire unit. And leave both burners on the same secondary IDE channel. I seldom copy or write from one cd to the other. My primary use is burning the dvd from the video capture drive and any improvement in that performance will be worth the effort.
Kent

Good stuff, JohnnyRoy.


> I was commenting on your original post about it taking too long to move files from one hard drive to another.

Well, not that it really makes much difference, but that wasn't my post -- it was from the originator of the thread.

> You could always buy another 80-pin cable and use it for the CD/DVD drives. They are upward compatible so feel free to replace the 40-pin cable with an 80-pin one.

Aha! Didn't know that. And I just so happen to have an extre 80 pin cable. Figured the connector would be different. But, then, I should know better, having been instructed to use the supplied 80-pinner in place of the original when adding a disc drive...

Thanks for the info, your time and expertise, and for the links....

In fairness to HP, a cd or DVD isn't going to be limited by an ATA33 cable - it only becomes an issue when you want to add a 2nd hd and find the higher UDMA modes aren't supported.

Ian G.

In fairness to the customer, you shouldn’t sell them a PC that isn’t upgradeable without replacing your cheap parts. Most users trust companies like Dell and HP, etc. and they don’t realize that they are selling them “dead-end” machines. Small companies like PCNirvana, ABS Computer, etc. build from stock parts and use quality components that are readily upgradeable. The public should know that the days of sticking with the “name brands” are over. If you can’t build you own, at least buy from a custom builder. (...hang on a sec while I get down from this soapbox.) ;-)

~jr