Hard drive controller card

[pirate252]

I have 2 hard drives, and 2 cd-drives they are both on 2 IDE cables, i was wondering if it would speed up preformance (especially on cd to cd copying if i had each one one its own IDE cable that owuld require me buying a IDE controller card, right? any advise on those would be useful

thanks,

Matt

 

[cdogg]

Most definitely, especially if you ever use both devices on one IDE channel at the same time (cause they share bandwidth).

Promise ATA controller cards work great. You could get an OEM version for as little as $20 before shipping at pricewatch.com.

~cdogg

 

[pirate252]

ok thats what i was hoping for, it will run faster if i put each one on its own channel right? and i can put 2 of them on the MOBO and the other 2 on the new card and that will work right? thanks

matt

 

[cdogg]

If you buy a PCI Promise ATA/100 Controller, then yes. It will give you a total of 4 IDE channels so you can place one device on each one. This will definitely enhance performance so that PIO devices run at their slower speed and DMA devices (hard drives) run at their proper speed.

~cdogg

 

[pirate252]

i wennt on that site an di have two more questions

1. shouldnt i but the 133, not the 100?

2. i have a DVD, CD-RW, 30 GIG HD, and a 13 GIG HD, how should i put those on, like which ones to the MOBO and which ones to the card...also does the card make it slower or faster than the IDE slots on the MOBO...


thanks,

matt

 

[cdogg]

Go ahead and go with ATA/133 if the price isn't much more. Your devices will use the fastest standard they know (which is most likely ATA/100, but at least it'll give you upgrade compatibility with ATA/133 devices in the future).

As far as which devices to put onto which controller, I'm not exactly sure it matters. I would leave your 30GIG on the primary on the MOBO. I would place the 13GIG on the Primary on the CARD. Leave the DVD and CD-RW on the secondary IDE channels.

~cdogg

 

[dakota81]

Unless ATA/133 controllers are just a few dollars more, don't even bother with them, most harddrive manufactures don't even support the new standard, quite simply because they haven't made drives that use the full potential of ATA/100. Tests done by hardware review sites show that the average ATA/100 7200rpm drive transfers about an average 30-40mbit/sec, and burst speed (from cache mem, NOT the hard disc) only gets up to 80mbit/sec.

 

[amandeephunjan]

ata/133 are fine if you are thinking for an upgrade soon else it will just be a waste of money as none of your present device is ata/133
think before you spend

 

[cdogg]

I recently read a review in Maximum PC a few months back on ATA/133 and whether it's worth the upgrade. High-end hard drives that are compatible with this new standard are still averaging between 35-45 mbit/sec transfer rates based on the HDTACH benchmark (as Dakota pointed out).

However, they ran HDTACH on the same hard drives using both ATA/100 and ATA/133. They noticed slightly higher burst rates in ATA/133 over ATA/100. I believe the difference was only like 5-7 mbit/sec, something like 85 mbit/sec versus 80 mbit/sec. The average transfer rate didn't vary much at only 1-2 mbit/sec faster on ATA/133.

In other words, ATA/133 doesn't provide that much of an improvement. It basically offers more headroom for higher rates. But if the price is reasonable, it can't hurt. Eventually serial ATA will replace parallel ATA (what we use now). Serial ATA will show some resemblance to SCSI and be much more capable of faster transfer rates.


~cdogg