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    2 Devices to 1 IDE100

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by J-Bytes, Jan 20, 2008.

  1. J-Bytes

    J-Bytes I am CanadiEEEn NBR Reviewer

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    While this question does relate to desktops, I felt it appropriate to post it here. So...

    To keep the cost of a building an Ubuntu computer very low, my friend and I decided to use the 1 IDE port on our selected MoBo to connect both our HDD and our optical drive, via the master and slave. The reason it saves us money is:

    A) It's a cheap Mobo

    B) We have a friend who is willing to give us an IDE hard drive for FREE

    The problem is, it's not IDE133; it's IDE100. How dreadfully slow would our Ubuntu computer be if we did this. We honestly don't care if takes a looong time, even like around 3 minutes, to open an app. But if it gets to the point of like, 10-15 minutes, then we have an issue.

    Could someone please tell us if this would be OK? (BTW, please don't recommend what we should have done or should do, just please try to answer our question.

    Thanks guys!
     
    J-Bytes, Jan 20, 2008
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  2. J-Bytes

    J-Bytes I am CanadiEEEn NBR Reviewer

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    help????????
     
    J-Bytes, Jan 20, 2008
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  3. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I'm not 100% sure, but I do not think IDE 133 became a big deal. Look over at NewEgg, and you'll only find a small handful of 133 HDDs.

    The only thing I can say is try it. I thought ATA stood for 100MB/s? If that is the case, then you'd be fine sharing a channel.
     
    Greg, Jan 20, 2008
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  4. M1chel

    M1chel Notebook Geek

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    You'll be absolutely fine, don't sweat it. Sharing a channel will reduce the speed slightly only when using both drives simultaneously (e.g., copying a CD to the HDD).
     
    M1chel, Jan 20, 2008
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  5. J-Bytes

    J-Bytes I am CanadiEEEn NBR Reviewer

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    Are you sure? Even when using IDE100 as opposed to 133?
     
    J-Bytes, Jan 20, 2008
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  6. camvan

    camvan Notebook Evangelist

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    IDE133 is backwards compatible to IDE100. in fact, I'd go so far as to say it's a joke spec...kinda like SATA 2 is to SATA 1...no HDD touches 300MB/s as no HDD (minus a few drives) even touches 133MB/s.

    I'm new to the notebook world, so I may not be able to answer a lot of questions about notebooks, but the desktop is my realm and what I just said is a fact.

    only bit of advice I have for you is to set your HDD to master and your optical drive to secondary when you put it on the one cable and connector. :)
     
    camvan, Jan 20, 2008
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  7. J-Bytes

    J-Bytes I am CanadiEEEn NBR Reviewer

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    Thanks a lot guys! From what you've told me I understand that one IDE100 port would be sufficient to connect an IDE HDD and optical drive.
     
    J-Bytes, Jan 20, 2008
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  8. PhoenixFx

    PhoenixFx Notebook Virtuoso

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    You won’t notice much of a difference between an ATA100 and ATA133 disk because that only comes in to play when you copy large files, most general operations require small random data reads and writes. Therefore disk’s RPM, cache and seek times will affect more than the " theoretical" maximum bandwidth of the interface.

    Having the optical drive and HDD on the same IDE channel is not a problem (since you don’t use the optical drive very frequently), however you may experience below average performance when copying data from your optical drive to the HDD.
     
    PhoenixFx, Jan 21, 2008
    #8