Which setup??

[Adamdc]

Building first PC and am deciding on IDE setup. Here are the 3 options I'm considering:

1. HD = Master on Primary IDE
CDROM = Slave on Primary IDE
CDRW = Master on Secondary IDE

2. HD = Master on Primary IDE
CDROM = Master on Secondary IDE
CDRW = Slave on Secondary IDE

3. RAID setup:

CDROM = Master on Primary IDE
CDRW = Master on Secondary IDE
HD = Master on Tertiary IDE

I use the term Master but I will have either set as 'Cable Select'.

Which setup seems to be the best? Are there any drawbacks to one versus the other? I've heard that sometimes slave devices on the same channel as the Hard Drive are sometimes not noticed, which would be the case in setup 1.

Thanks for any input!

adam

[Adamdc]

I probably should have stated:


Gigabyte GA 7VRXP Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
WD 40GB 7200RPM HD IDE
2 x 256 Crucial PC2700
Lite-On 48x12x48 CDRW
Creative 52x Blaster CDROM
also Floppy Drive

[OS-Wiz]

Option 3 would be best but some have trouble getting their RAID controller's channels to act as regular channels. If so, Option 1 would be best. Note: use the master/slave jumpers, some mobo's have trouble with 'cable select' based on their south bridge/BIOS. Regards . . .

[Adamdc]

If I plan to be using my CD-ROM on more occasions than the CD-RW should I make the CD-RW the slave to the HD on the first channel and put the CDROM on the second channel as the master?

The CDRW will be used for an occasional data backup and a very rare burn.

[blt]

Use option #2.

Sounds like you intend to use the CDRW mostly to backup data from the HDD. Makes sense to have them on different channels. As for burning the occassional CD from the CD-ROM, you'll only notice a slight slow-down, if any.

I use that configuration and it works fine.