Newbie Hard drive configuration question

[Untruest]

I am just enable to figure this out and too tired. I need some help.

I have an ata100 hard drive and an ata66 hard drive. I used to have them on IDE channel 1 and my cd-rom on channel 2. I recently changed that to having each hard drive on its own channel and the cd-rom as prim to the ata66 hard drive.

The problem is when i boot, before windows loads it says that the ata100 is now running at 33. How do i fix that?

I gave them seperate channels, so when i am swapping files theoretically they can do it simultaneously thus giving me a bit more performance where i need it (like in games). I am correct about that right? ( i know it's not like raid where they would work on the same data)

 

[folken]

The ata100 drive will need an 80wire cable. You probably have a 40wire cable on the drive.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[Untruest]

Your right i do have a 80pin and a 40pin, however when i had both drives on the same channel, i was using the 40pin on them while i was using the 80 on the cd-rom cuz it was the longest. So because it ran at 100 when using the 40pin ide cable, i assumed that wasn't the problem.

I am going to try and rearrange it so i can still have everything connected to the mobo but was there any other reason why this could be happening?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Untruest on 08/18/05 05:34 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[folken]

That must be the problem bec I dont believe it is physically possible for a 40wire to run at ata100. The computer world is always littered with its odd occurances though

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[Untruest]

Man that's strange then. But i can use my 40 on the ata66 with no problem right? Cuz pulling out those hard drives are going to take some work, lol and i am kind of lazy.

 

[Untruest]

Sorry bout double posting. But i came up with a better idea to answer my question. I wondered why would my ata100 go all the way down to a 33 and not 66. So i switched the cables (left the cd-rom plugged out) and saw my Ata100 drive running at that but the ata66 was now running at 33.

So the new question is Do i keep it the way it is by having an ata33(C and an ata66(D drive set up, or do i rearrange and set up a ata100(C and ata33(D or lastly have them both on the same channel running at ata100(C and ata66(D respectively?

The reason why i want to stress having them on different channels, is because i read they have their own bandwidth (like 100,133,66...) and i can get more information to flow per clock or simultaneously. Is that true?

I also heard u only use up about 50-60mb/s and not the full 100 anyway. But keep in mind that 33 is below that.

 

[blah]

You can cut my bug's head off if you will SEE the difference between those cables in the real life usage.

Besically it does NOT matter what cables you are using. NONE of the difference that any body can notice.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Untruest]

Hey,

It does make a difference for me because i don't have the luxury of having over 512mb of ram. So when i play my games, i have about 300 and more megs in swap file and i need the best performance settings cuz my games are lagging and it aint a beautiful experience.

Well earlier today i switched the c drive to ata100 and the cd-rom with the d drive to IDE2 channel at ata33 and PIO. Performance already seems to better so i am going to leave it this way, unless of course having both drives sharing a channel is better.

Thnx Everyone.

 

[pat]

You'll see a difference in speed from 66 to 100 for sure. And even from 33 to 66. Best to have your booth drive to run at ATA100. It is the one that matter more here in term of speed. CDROM and others optical device dont suffer from ata33, they just are not fast enough to saturate the interface.

So have your HDD running the faster they can, and dont bother about the optical devices.

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[pat]

That must be the problem bec I dont believe it is physically possible for a 40wire to run at ata100. The computer world is always littered with its odd occurances though

The extra wires in 80 wires ribbon are used as shield to prevent cross talking between wire. When a high frequency signal goes thru a wire, it creates induction that affect the other wire near. ATA100 and 133 create that kind of problem when transmitting data at high speed. That why you'll likely to have problem with data corruption if you have bad/inadequate ribbon cable

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[Untruest]

Peak whise, my c drive is an ata100 and my d is an ata66. Now u say i should have them run as high as possible because i'll notice performance between a ata33 and ata66. But the question in hand is do i put both hard drives on IDE1 so they'll both be at their highest or do i seperate them and put 1 on IDE1 and the other on IDE2 for better IRQ by both hard drives?

I am sure u know but when i say IDE1 and IDE2, i am referring to the actual IDE slot on the mobo.

 

[Untruest]

Not at all, but i am hoping u can enlighten me.

 

[Untruest]

What exactly do u do to find out if there's a fault in the cable. Cuz at 1st, my cable was able to do ata66 no problems but now has revert to 33 for some unknown reason.

 

[Untruest]

HD Tach seems like an awesome program, the thing that got me worried was the kernel, and i started worrying if it will only run on linux, but it would appear to run on xp as well.

Another thing is i am missing how speed burst ties in too all this. Unless u were implying i should use each set up and test them using HD Tach for best performance.

What i need out of my drives, is for them to be working simultaneously on seperate files/data (not like raid where it's the same one) so one doesn't have to wait for the other to carry it's work. Will Tach test how well it can achieve this?

 

[Untruest]

Thanks Wusy, I got the HD tach, tested my hard drive and my burst speed was showing up as 34mb/s and 18mb/s on the other drive. This is not the type of speeds i want to be seeing.

Is the sequential speed dependant on the burst speed? Cuz it seems like a limit.

Another thing that didn't get answered, is whether having both drives on different channels better?

Now i want to reconfigure the whole thing since i really don't like the burst speed.

 

[blah]

That’s about right for normal day to day use. Burst is nothing but the ploy, it is a burst, happens only in the beginning of the transfer and then it is going back to normal ~33MB~ usage. Don't be fooled by these super gurus, they seam to know so much about theory that are forgetting about real life. Once more, cables will make no difference in REAL LIFE USAGE (or put it this way: not the one that will make your pants wet from excitement). And one more thing if you put 133MB cable on the drive and hook up CD/DVD ROM into it (with the drive) it will transfer ONLY 33MB which is called an adjustment to the slowest link on the chain.

And yes, having two drives on the separate channels will help a little.


..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Untruest]

Finaly, thanks for some direct answers,lol

I was wondering though, if i can raise the burst speed through tweaking. Because i compared it to a similar drive and its burst speed was 80mb/s.

And can i get a short explanation of sequential read?

 

[RichPLS]

cables will make no difference in REAL LIFE USAGE (or put it this way: not the one that will make your pants wet from excitement)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Depends on how much pron is at the end of that cable...

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[Untruest]

This is what i got for yeah on my ata100 drive

burst speed: 36.5mb/s
average read: 22.5mb/s
random access: 14.4ms
cpu usage: 10%

Obviously not normal right?

 

[blah]

What's up with yoll peepel? Let the HDs do their job and enjoy the life as it is flying by. If it works and stuff isn't it wonderfool? What is the difference by how many nunoseconds quicker your file opens than mine? I still use 4200 and 5400 RPM HDs in my laptops and they are just fine, internet works on both with the same speed, well.. yeah boot time is kind of 10 seconds longer on 4200, but comeon, the internet after that works with the same speed anyway

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Untruest]

Samsung SV1021h

And blah the performance of my computer is based on my HDs, so it's important for me to get max out of them. And it's not for using the internet,lol (if i can cache to my ram, would i even need an HD to surf? ASk ur self that Blah)

 

[Untruest]

DAmn had i known earlier, i would of got a 40gb on sunday cuz i get 50% off.

I should mention though that the specs on my drive are ata100 UDMA, 8.5ms seek and 5400rpm, cache 512kb. I'd say that's pretty good and it shouldn't be giving me the real time specs i am getting now. What do u think?

 

[Untruest]

Well i am not far off from there, it's a celeron 800 socket 370.

But r u implying i should still get 80mb/s burst?

 

[Untruest]

Here's what i recently changed and got better fps in game. Given Hd tach told me my D: drive had poor burst sequential read speed, i decided to reduce the page file on that drive to about 2mb. The reason being is when anything gets created, it's put on free store/stack (which is memory) and i figured all that was being put on my slow d drive so i reduced its page file and increased the c drive's.

The reason why i didn't completly get rid of it, is because i am hoping whatever gets stored on the heap is greater than 2mb thus both drives can share the task and i can get about 40mb/s total sequential read and about the same for burst speed.

Genius or not? (Can't believe i forgot about the heap, and i call my self a programmer)

 

[Untruest]

yeah, static