CD-ROM DMA Modes?

[kallenin]

Hi,

Which DMA MOdes can CD-ROMs use? All the same ones as hard drives? What I'm really getting at is this: will an 80-pin cable help CD-ROM performance, or will it not matter?

-Kallenin

 

[lhgpoobaa]

The Majority of modern CD-rom, cd-rw and dvd drives today use ata-33 (UDMA2). Earlier drives of course use progressivly slower standards.

A few DVD drives come equipped with ata66 (UDMA4) or ata100 (UDMA5) interfaces, but this is really just a Marketing Gimmic.

The fastest cd-rom/rw drive transfers data at a max speed of 8-9Mb/sec, and DVD at up to 22Mb/sec... Well below the limitation of even lowly ata33.

So weather you use 80wire cables or not is really up to you. Ive used both and its made no difference.
So this is what i reccomend:

If the cd-rom is alone on a channel, it doesnt matter.
If you have 2 optical drives on one channel, 40 wire cables should be sufficient, unless one of the drives is a cd-rw and you plan on doing lots of 'on the fly' copying from one to the other. In that case, use an 80wire cable.
If the optical drive is with a hard drive, use a 80wire cable becauze the hard drives needs it.

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