IDE Performance

Most computers have two IDE controllers (A primary and a secondary). Since you can connect only 2 IDE devices to each controller this allows up to 4 devices. A typical configuration would be an IDE hard drive as Master on Controller 1 and a CD-ROM as mater on controller 2. The reason why I would separate the 2 devices is because an IDE controller can only access one device at a time. Putting the Hard Drive and CD-ROM on separate controllers allows a computer to access information from both devices at the same time, which is great for installing programs from CD-ROM and also great for video games.

Another example would be if you wanted to install a CD-ROM and a CD Burning (CD-RW) drive. Since you would be pulling data from the CD-ROM drive to be written to the re-writable CD-RW drive they should be on separate channels as well; and since CD-ROM drives typically read faster than CD-RAM drives that would be the drive you would use when installing software and playing video games, so the recommended configuration would be:

Your Hard Drive as Master and your CD-RW drive as Slave on IDE controller 1; and your CD-ROM drive as Master on IDE controller 2.

The tables quickly turn if you plan on copying your CD-ROM data to Hard Drive and then burn the data from there.

So keep in mind what IDE devices you need to connect and how they will be used so you can best determine how to connect them.

NOTE: CD-ROMs connect through the IDE controller however you may see them referred to as ATAPI. The reason for this is because many years ago (right when 4 speed CD-ROMs came out) the industry standard was to have a proprietary CD-ROM card that you had to install in the ISA slot to connect your CD-ROM to. Soon they created the ATAPI standard to allow them to connect through the IDE controller, and Motherboard manufacturers began creating Motherboards with 2 IDE controllers so that more devices could connect.

Now you can get Motherboards with 4 IDE controllers and fast IDE transfer speeds such as ATA-66 and ATA-100 and faster.

Article last reviewed: 12/23/2002

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