I brought a new 20G 7200rpm WD hard disk to add up to my present 10G 5400rpm old drive. Is it better to connect like this? Primary Master: 20G 7200rpm new HD; Primary Slave: none; Secondary Master: 10G 5400rpm HD; Secondary Slave: CD Drive. Does the 7200rpm HD need a cooling fan?n If so, which one should be cooled down, is it the PCB side or the metal side?
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How to connect 7200rpm & 5400rpm Hard Drive
- Thread starter JonathanB
- Start date
To answer your first question, maybe. It depends on several things. First of all, does your motherboard support ATA/100, and if not what's the fastest spec that it does? Does the 7200RPM hard drive?
Basically, you usually want the faster hard drive on its own IDE channel if possible. Unfortunately, the 10GB drive will most likley run slower than it did before sharing the channel with the CDROM drive. That's why you want to make sure that the 7200RPM drive will actually benefit from having an independent IDE controller. If not, put both hard drives on the Primary with the CDROM on the Secondary.
As for the cooling issue, it also depends. Buy a thermometer probe at Radio Shack and measure the temp just below and above the hard drive. Make sure the temp doesn't exceed 44°C. If it does, a cooling fan wouldn't be a bad idea.
Hope that helps...
~cdogg
Basically, you usually want the faster hard drive on its own IDE channel if possible. Unfortunately, the 10GB drive will most likley run slower than it did before sharing the channel with the CDROM drive. That's why you want to make sure that the 7200RPM drive will actually benefit from having an independent IDE controller. If not, put both hard drives on the Primary with the CDROM on the Secondary.
As for the cooling issue, it also depends. Buy a thermometer probe at Radio Shack and measure the temp just below and above the hard drive. Make sure the temp doesn't exceed 44°C. If it does, a cooling fan wouldn't be a bad idea.
Hope that helps...
~cdogg
- Thread starter
- #3
Yes. I want to maximize my new 7200rpm hard drive. My Asus p3v4x mobo says UltraDMA66. Is this the one needed to run ATA100 from the mobo. At present, my setup is Primary Master: Old 5400rpm 10G HD, and primary Slave is CD Drive. It's just that I'll transfer both to the Secondary channel and leave the new drive to the primary. Seem okay?
Jakespeare
Vendor
Seems ok.
NEW HD on primary (as master) by itself.
*ALSO* when installing the NEW HD in your case, DO NOT sandwich it together will the old drive. It will overheat.
You need an air gap around it. So, if there is not room for 2 HD's in the location where the old one is, then you should buy a HD carriage, or mount (the same type used to install a Zip drive of floppy drive in the 5 1\2 slots - the CD-ROM slots) and install the Old hard drive up in one of the CD-Rom slots.
That way you can also hook it up easier to the CD-ROM.
Secondary: HD as master ...... CD-Rom as slave
IDE cable - 1st connection, the slave should go there, and the Master on the end of the cable.
NEW HD on primary (as master) by itself.
*ALSO* when installing the NEW HD in your case, DO NOT sandwich it together will the old drive. It will overheat.
You need an air gap around it. So, if there is not room for 2 HD's in the location where the old one is, then you should buy a HD carriage, or mount (the same type used to install a Zip drive of floppy drive in the 5 1\2 slots - the CD-ROM slots) and install the Old hard drive up in one of the CD-Rom slots.
That way you can also hook it up easier to the CD-ROM.
Secondary: HD as master ...... CD-Rom as slave
IDE cable - 1st connection, the slave should go there, and the Master on the end of the cable.
- Thread starter
- #5
UltraDMA66 is compatible with ATA/66. So your new hard drive will run at ATA/66 which isn't bad.
One thing for you to check...Make sure the old hard drive isn't ATA/66 compatible. If it is, it would make more sense having it on the Primary as well. This is because it will run faster than on the Secondary controller with the CDROM and won't slow down the new hard drive!
Just an opinion though! If you don't care too much about the speed of the 10GB drive, then your suggested config will work fine!
One thing for you to check...Make sure the old hard drive isn't ATA/66 compatible. If it is, it would make more sense having it on the Primary as well. This is because it will run faster than on the Secondary controller with the CDROM and won't slow down the new hard drive!
Just an opinion though! If you don't care too much about the speed of the 10GB drive, then your suggested config will work fine!
And don't forget to use an ultra IDE cable (fine 80 core) on both channels.
The older type cable looks courser and is just fine for slower rom devices but it's slower data transfer capabilities will slow your harddrive down even further.
Your new drive is UDMA 100, your board is UDMA 66, so you are already slower possible data transfer down but if you use the old course cable this will hold the data transfer back even further to the older UDMA 33 standard.
This is only generalizing you understand. Martin Just trying to help, sometimes falling short, I am only human after all.
The older type cable looks courser and is just fine for slower rom devices but it's slower data transfer capabilities will slow your harddrive down even further.
Your new drive is UDMA 100, your board is UDMA 66, so you are already slower possible data transfer down but if you use the old course cable this will hold the data transfer back even further to the older UDMA 33 standard.
This is only generalizing you understand. Martin Just trying to help, sometimes falling short, I am only human after all.
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