Burn2death wrote:Unless system speed it not important to you, why would you want to put your CD burner on the some IDE as you HDD, by doing this your HDD is only able to run at the speed of the DVD-Rom which is probably UDMA 33, while your HDD is probably able to run at higher speed (UMDA 33/66/100).
While it used to be true that putting a slow device on the same IDE channel with a fast device would force both devices to operate using the slower device's transfer mode, that is not the case any longer. Modern IDE controllers and devices support independent device timing that allows each device to operate at its own speed using its own transfer mode, independently of the other device on the channel. Thus, if the DVD-ROM drive isn't being actively used, the hard drive can operate at full speed without impediment.
Of course, if both drives are being used at the same time then they have to share the bus, and the hard drive will have to wait longer for the DVD-ROM to complete its transfers before the hard drive can take control of the bus and take its turn. But even this is often not too significant if you have a newer optical drive that supports UDMA 33. And remember that the UDMA transfer rates are
maximum interface rates, not sustained device transfer rates. An IDE drive can't sustain transfer rates anywhere near 100 MB/s.
Even so, I still prefer to have my hard drive alone on primary, and the two optical drives on secondary. That eliminates any worry about degrading hard drive performance (for an older system that might not support independent device timing) and optimizes for transfer from either optical drive to hard disc. But then again, I don't burn on-the-fly.
cfitz