2 Hdd

[kaiweiler]

Hey if i have one SATA HDD running at 7200rpm, and I put in an IDE drive running slower just as a slave for music files, would it slow down my faster drive?

Kai

[tesco]

no it wont because they are on different channels, if you were to have say a ata100 and ata66 on one channel then teh 100 would be slowed down but because it is sata it wont make a difference.

[kaiweiler]

perfect thanks

EDIT actually I am not sure if my other drive is sata, I don't think it is now
It is a Maxtor 80gb 8mb cache, Ultra ATA/133, but it is not cennected through and IDE cable. It came with a "serillel2 converter" that upgrades it to serial ATA and connects to the serial ATA port on my mobo, is this still okay? it wouldn't slow down if I put in a slower drive as well would it?

[lynx]

If you have the possibility to run the drive as sata, that is better since it is on a separate channel (and your other IDE drive would need to be master on its channel).

If you run them both on the same channel you may get some slowdown simply because you can only access one drive at once on a particular channel. However, you won't slow down the faster drive simply because you have fitted a lower speed drive as a slave. Some people will tell you this is not the case, if so they should read the ATA specification.

[kaiweiler]

So if my current HD is connected via SATA as a master, and I want to connect a slower, smaller drive via IDE, both the SATA and IDE drives must be set on master?? because they are on seperate channels? or would the IDE be set as a slave and the bigger faster SATA drive as a master?
and for the record my SATA drive is set through this converter:
http://www.mittoni.com.au/catalog/images/IDESATA.jpg

[lynx]

They are on separate channels, so they are both masters. I always set up my drives as Cable Select these days. I'm not sure whether that would work with that adapter, but it will certainly work on master. Set the slower drive to cable select and use the master (black) connector on your Ultra ATA cable.

Make sure you install the sata drivers before trying to switch over to sata connection - they should have come with your mobo.

[kaiweiler]

Alright, got everything working fine, both are set to master, my bigger faster one via SATA, my smaller slower one via IDE, working fine
Thanks folks

Kai