I have a few questions about IDE... I know the basics, like master/slave and the like. I want to know about how (exactly) it works and about optimization.

Questions 1: How does it work? I looked at the ribbon cable before, and it appears to have just 40 wires, all of which go into the master device. Where/how does the slave come in? And when the devices are set as 'cable select', how do they know where they are on the cable?

Question 2: What is the best configuration? I read that hard drives should be on primary, because it separates them from the slower devices like cdroms and sometimes the secondary channel is slower. But what if the devices are the same speed (ie old hd+new cd)? What makes (ie what is the measurement of speed that makes) one device faster than another? If a faster device was put on master with a slower one on slave, would the master be affected?
Are transfers faster between different channels than between a master and slave on the same channel?

My 2ct tips:

Q1:
First of all, there are ata66+ cables and ata33- cables. The difference is in the number of wires. They both have the same connectors, but the ata66+ cables are capable of higher transfer rates. The drive at the end of the cable is the master usualy the master drive in a cable select configuration, but I would always specify master or slave. I have had problems with csl in the past. The coloured wire is usually the wire that goes to the first pin.

Q2.
If possible put the drives on seperate channels (on different controllers) because the cable is shared between the devices. Putting a slower device and a faster device together will influence the performance negatively. Transfer rates between different channels are faster than on the same cable because the cable has to be shared.

I hope this helps,
Marcel

Have you googled lately?

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definit...213931,00.html
http://www.nightflight.com/foldoc-bi...ogy+Attachment
http://www.phm.lu/Documentation/Connectors/IDE.asp

Thanks for the helpful replies, they really clarified things for me, esp. the pcguide link michaelk posted.
Are the ATA-66+ cables the ones that look a bit 'thinner' compared to the old ones? How many wires does each have ?
Exactly how does the negative effect come about? Does it matter if the fast device is Master or will there still be a negative effect? According to the pcguide link, master/slave is just symbolic, so I suspect the latter. Also, would either an ATA-33 cdrom or an ATA-33 hd together on the same channel suffer negative effects (are there other factors determining speed)?