[linux-audio-user] OT: ide drives

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:43:16 +0100, anahata <anahata at treewind.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 07:44:11PM +0200, David Baron wrote:
> > Why does "everyone" set things up with HDs on one channel, CDs on the other? I
> > was told that the slower CD device will slow down the HD. I had run Windoze
> > with a setup like the above with no problems, however.
> 
> It used to be true. It was often misrepresented as the CD slowing the HD
> down to its speed

No - this actually is true. An EIDE controller that is compliant with
the ATAPI specs will recognie that one drive operates with the cable
going 100MHz, while the controller recognizes that the CDROM only
works when the cable goes 33MHz or 66MHz. since the two drives are on
the same cable the EIDE controller sets the cable speed at 33MHz and
therefore you get less throughput from the hard drive. I wasn't aware
until about 2 years ago that the controller had to do this. There are
some good white papers somewhere on the Seagate or Maxtors sites if I
remember correctly.