I never use cable select and don't know of anyone who does.
Well last time there were several threads people have stated they use
cable select and I was the only one who still havent used cable
select. They pointed out it made more sense so I changed. I used to
use M/S mainly because I was just used to it.
It does make more sense unless you never change your setup. I
generally end up doing trouble shooting changing things around and
adding HDs later on and you then have to check what is what. This can
lead to problems if you dont set them properly obviously. Especially
since WD and Maxtors jumpers are a bit different. For me I admitted it
just seemed to eliminate some hassles.
One of the things that changed my mind was that hds are often screwed
in and the diagram on top of the HD showing the jumper settings are
blocked. You then have to look up your HD on the net and jumper
settings or the docs which may be a pain if havent touched your system
for 6 months and dont quite remember what model it is etc or unscrew
them out of the bracket. With cable select you just set everthing to
cs and then just add them anywhere theoretically without any problems.
Well that would be a coin toss. Everyone I know has been using cable
select for awhile now and the places around here. When I work on other
systems its usually set on CS.
The main reason as some places explain it wasnt popular in the past is
because the 40 conductor wire couldnt use CS so you had to get a
special cable. They also point out the layout was weird with the older
cables - the master or single drive was the connector in the middle
of the cable so you had to get a Y cable which supposedly led to poor
adoption of CS in the past. With the 80 conductor cables they are said
to be CS compatible and and the master/single drive is on the end so
it makes sense just to CS nowadays. But youre right in that alot of
people because of the past mess still tend to use M/S but not around
where I live anymore and Ive been criticized in the past in other subs
for clinging to M/S until fairly recently. I like it now , way less
hassles for me since Im always wapping thngs in and out and forget
what the settings are. Of course its easier if you have M S CS
printed right in back of the HD near the jumpers but even that
requires looking in back of the HD in your case and then taking them
out etc which is still more of a hassle than
just looking at your cable and seeing right away which is master and
which is slave by cable position and then being able to swap it out
without changing a thing except the cable connector.
Yes if you are talking to a variety of people with old systems with
old cables - its safer to use M/S though anyone can buy a 80 conductor
cable nowadays for $2-4.
