IDE Setup?

[OmegaX]

Right now this is my setup

Primary:
Master - Maxtor ATA-33 (old drive)
Slave - Pioneer 16x DVD

Secondary:
Master - Yamaha 16x10x40x CD-RW
Slave - N/A

I was gonna be purchasing an IBM 75GXP ATA-100 Drive to go where my Maxtor was and move the existing Hard Drive to be Slave on the Secondary Channel.

I know there are is a problem with my setup that the IBM drive will go as slow as the Pionner Drive, because they share the same channel. Does anyone know whether there is a way around this? Oh, don't mind the board that I am using now the P3B-F, because I will be upgrading to a new mobo whenever the Tualatin/Athlon 4 are released (don't know which to go for yet, I never make judgements based on specs only until I see it for myself).


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[Lars_Coleman]

Your IBM drive shouldn't go as slow as the Pioneer DVD. It may impact the performance of the IBM hard drive, but the IBM drive is going to run at the speed of the Motherboard controller and/or the speed of the drive itself.

I would recamend this setup :::
Primary Master = IBM 75GXP
Primary Slave = Pioneer DVD
Secondary Master = Maxtor hdd
Secondary Slave = Yamaha CDRW

Better yet get a Promise ATA100 Controller card, install your hard drives to that and leave the ATAPI/CdRom drives on the motherboard controllers. Depending on the system it might be a nice cheap upgrade ...

<font color=green>"Your call will be answered by the next available Tech Support representative"</font color=green>

 

[OmegaX]

Thanks for the advice, I forgot about the ATA-100 card, but why do you suggest making my Burner a slave?

I thought it was better to make the burner a master?


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[OmegaX]

Oh, one other thing I forgot to ask, I have been reading throught the post and noticed a lot of people having trouble with that IBM drive.

My friend had to RMA his, but I thought that was just him, he's had troble with a lot of his purchases and gets bad luck. The store that I work at I think had to RMA one or two of that IBM series and we have sold around 50-70 of them. What is your opinion about these drives? Is there a particular size that I should get to avoid these problems?


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[Lars_Coleman]

It shouldn't hurt the burner being a Slave nor the hard drive, but you can run into more performance issues slaving a hard drive to a CdRom drive or even to another hard drive. So I've seen. The burner it self should say in the instructions what position is better for it. Like I had an HP Burner that suggested being a Slave and now I have a 16x10x40 Plextor and it doesn't say. If I was to set up another hard drive on the same cable as it, I would just slave it to a hard drive ...

That's just my openion.

<font color=green>"Your call will be answered by the next available Tech Support representative"</font color=green>

 

[Guest]

Isnt the master position the first priorty?

Too damn hot in that kitchen!

 

[Lars_Coleman]

I would go with Maxtor myself for several different reasons.

First, because they make the bigest IDE hard drive.
Second, because the performance isn't much different then the IBM drives.
Third, because you can find them anywhere! (CompUSA, BestBuy, Office Depot, ect.)

My openion again. Another thing I have noticed about this forum is that they are anti-Maxtor and only recamend IBM hard drives ...

<font color=green>"Your call will be answered by the next available Tech Support representative"</font color=green>

 

[OmegaX]

I was thinking of getting a 40 Gb Hard Drive and my friend suggested that I get the IBM 75GXP. The price between the IBM and Maxtor is about a $30 difference, I live in Canada and can get it direct from the distributor due to the fact that I work in a computer store. So, the availability of the drive is not the problem, I don't mind the price, but above all else I want it to be reliable. IBM has always made good IDE and SCSI Hard Drives in the past, I just don't understand what is wrong with their new line?


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[Guest]

I had a brand new IBM 30GB 7200rpm/ata100 die within 2hours. Replaced it with a Western digital, so far its been great.

Too damn hot in that kitchen!

 

[Lars_Coleman]

I was going to try an IBM so I had something to compare to, but it isn't worth it to me! I haven't heard anything that makes them that much better then Maxtor. It's easier for me to walk to OfficeDepot over here and buy a Maxtor drive and be up and running then to wait for it to be shipped to me.

<font color=green>"Your call will be answered by the next available Tech Support representative"</font color=green>

 

[Guest]

The 75 GXP has not been implemented properly and thus you shouldn't get it.

About Maxtor...well,I had a Maxtor hd die on me within half a year or so.

 

[Lars_Coleman]

Yeah, I had a Maxtor drive die on me, a WesternDigital, and a Quantum. Is there a point?
I have 5 Maxtor drives running 24/7 for a little more then a year or so now and have no issues ...

<font color=green>"Your call will be answered by the next available Tech Support representative"</font color=green>

 

[OmegaX]

Not to be opinionate, but I have had nothing but problems over the years with western digitals, they were the lowest quality drives you can buy when I was putting together 486's and Pentiums. They would die on me all the time. You should have seen one, I got it direct from the distributor and installed it on a new system for a customer, and went to fdisk it...then, bam all I hear is the screeching noise of the head touching the cyinder! I grab another drive out of our cabinet and install it the same thing. The drives was never banged at all and there were several cases of this. I've had a lot of repairs come in and they tell me that their computer is getting all kinds of errors, we surface scan the disks and they have errors all over them. Plus, I have seen them come in where they just won't boot, because the drive has died on them. You can even find hate sites out there on Western Digital so it is not just me. I am trying to not be biased, I have seen every brand of drive have problems, but it seemed to me over the years that Western Digital has been our #1 RMA customer.


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[Guest]

yeah! interesting,was told by the puter shop GUY they are good.But I spose they tell you anything to shift shelf stock. WD was the warranty replacement for the IBM.

Too damn hot in that kitchen!

 

[OmegaX]

Well, you know as long as the drive works for you, then that is great and I am glad to hear it...I pray for you that there are no problems in the future with it.


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[Guest]

Its a stand in until i get the$$$ for bigger better things, anyway whats the deal with getting this promise controller?How is it set up?

Too damn hot in that kitchen!

 

[OmegaX]

Actually, they are not that hard to set up (as long as you have a good mobo that does not get to many IRQ conflicts when you put additional PCI devices in)...basically just plug the card in, attach your drives as you would with your onboard controller and then configure your devices in the cards version of a bios. The speed won't be much different then the onboard controllers, because the bandwidth of a PCI slot is 32-bit * 33 Mhz / 8 = 132 Mb/sec, but you must remember that there is a bit longer latency due to longer trail leads than the IDE controller to the Southbridge. There is an advantage though:
1) You can purchse a Raid controller if you have non on your mobo
2) The Cards come with Cache and therefore will speed up your computer with frequently accessed small files.

I hope this helps.


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[Guest]

and compared with SCSI controllers its cheaper but slower?

Too damn hot in that kitchen!

 

[Lars_Coleman]

IDE compared to SCSI is something IDE is going to lose on all the time ... SCSI controllers are more expensive and IDE is the Poor man's/home user's speed ...

You can get a Promist FastTrak100 TX2 IDE RAID controller for ruffly $80. You can get an ATA100 Controller manufactured by Promise for Maxtor for $50. Whereas a SCSI card from Adaptec runs arround $300 depending on model.

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[OmegaX]

agreed, but a scsi-160 obviously runs at 160 mbps and therefore peaks over the bandwidth of the PCI slot and you get bottlenecks, if you overclock you pci slot, you increase the effectiveness of the scsi-160, but you must make sure you only use hi quality expansion cards in your pic slots, otherwise they might not function properly, I believe I have my PCI slots running at 142 Mhz right now and have no problems. I have a Creative Labs SB Live! Value, DLink 10/100 Ethernet Card and no problems. Most cards can take the overclock.

Now, there are some motherboards that come with 64-bit PCI slots and you can get SCSI-160 Adapters that support the 64-bit PCI layout....this effectively doubles your maximum PCI transfer rate and eliminates the bottleneck.
64-bit * 33Mhz / 8 = 264 Mb/s.

This type of equipment is really expensive, I have build up several dual processor systems with 64-bit SCSI-160 Raid cards with 32Mb Cache and 4 18Gb SCSI-160 @ 10,000 RPM set to Raid 0 for speed. These are quite pricy things and are only really neccessary if youplan to use your computer for quick file transfers, such as web/sms/passport/proxy/ftp servers etc.


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[OmegaX]

yes, it does cost more, but it is not yet worth the price for the average home user and as I mention in my post it, you get bottle necks when using them in regular 32-bit PCI slots.


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[lhgpoobaa]

Get the 60GXP instead of the older 75GXP.

cooler, quieter & more reliable.

"i love the smell of Overclocking in the morning!" Says my Hamster.

 

[ahallada]

I have an IBM ATA100 7200rpm 60GB and Maxtor ATA66 7200rpm 60GB running together on an A7M266 MOBO.
I have them hooked up in serial right now to the primary IDE channel with the Maxtor as Master. I'm getting an index score of 26,259 with the IBM on Sisoft Sandra Benchmark which is faster than their spec ATA100 7200 30GB drive. 7ms access times also. The Maxtor runs around 18,000 index, very quiet drive though.
Will I see much improvement with the Promise ATA/100 TX2 and is it worth it to purchase another IBM ATA100 that matches my first one to do a RAID 0 with the Promise FastTrack ATA100 TX2? I use it mostly for recording digital audio with ProTools software. I have the regular Promise ATA/100 TX2 coming next week, but I came close to trying a RAID configuration. Any thoughts?

 

[FatBurger]

You forgot cheaper. $104 for a 40gig 60GXP on PriceWatch.

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