DVD writer - master or slave?
 

never quite knew for sure.
When installing a disc writer, be it CDR or DVDR, on a machine with another DVD drive(non writer) should I put the Writer as the master or slave on the 2ndary IDE? does it matter, or is there a performance difference?

Thanks...

Don't think it really matters. I had a cd-rom set as master and then put in a burner set as slave and it worked fine, and right now I have it the other way around and it's been working perfectly.

just dont mix a low speed device such as a hard drive and a CD/DVD on the same IDE channel (as master and slave) otherwise they'll both run at the speed of the lowest speed device, which is nearly always going to be the CD/DVD

thanks!

I'm pretty damn positive master/slave doesn't matter. It does matter if you are using some other device on the same channel when you try using the optical drive. Your best results would probably be with it as master with no slave on the secondary chain.

I worked at a computer assembley company. We always put the writer as master in the top of the case. It was company policy but it will also work the other way.

I think everyone's already said the right answer but I'll repeat :) Shouldn't matter if it's a master or slave, but don't put the drive you're reading from and the drive you're writing to on the same connector. Only one device on a connector can be operated at a time, so you'll risk buffer under-runs as it can't read new data whilst it's writing to the DVD/CD.

I usually slave my burner and dont read cd's with it as much because i'm afraide ill wear it our :)

For sensitivity issues, please stop using the terms "Master" and "Slave".

Ha ha! :)

-Lasereth

sorry what was it we agreed on , Pimp and bitch ?, i forget.

Wow, 2 things I didn't know here.

First, dont put a hard drive and cd-rom or burner on the same IDE cable becuase of speed issues.

Second, dont put a cd-rom and cd-burner on the same IDE because of reading and writing at the same time....


So like, where should you put that cd-rw then??

I have 2 hard drives, a cd-rom, and a cd-rw. I have the 2 hard drives on one cable and the cd-rom's on the other. Does this mean I just have to put up with taking a chance on buffer underun or should I switch some things around?

Thanks ;)

I was wondering how long it would take the thought-police to arrive ;)

Artsemis - there's nothing inherently wrong with having your CD rom and CD-rw on the same cable. It only means you shouldn't copy directly from one to the other; always go via one of the HDs. The setup you have means you shouldn't have problems burning from either HD to the CD-RW, and the 2 CD devices won't slow down access to your HDs by hogging the bus. Only caveat is that while you're burning, leave the CD-ROM alone - this includes even opening the drive door! For some reason this can result in it briefly taking over the IDE channel, and your CD-RW has to rely on its internal buffer (which rapidly runs out at reasonable burn speeds). Otherwise, sounds like a good setup.

Personally, I have:
1: CD-RW, DVD-ROM
2: 30Gb HD, 14Gb HD (storage, slower discs)
3: 120Gb HD (system)

The extra connector is from a cheap PCI IDE card I bought. I have the system drive on its own so that it never gets its channel hogged by another device. The only problems I get with this system is if I try to use both CD drives at the same time, as I mentioned above.