Question Regarding IDE Controllers

[Bill]

I learned some time ago you can improve system performance by placing the paging file (virtual memory) on a different drive than your system drive, not just another partition, but on a different drive.

So here is my question: My primary drive is ATA133 (C). If I add an older drive (ATA33) to the same controller (D) will it impact the speed of the primary drive?

Adding the drive to the second controller isn't an option as this is a dual boot system, drives E & F are used by that system.

Thanks, Bill


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[Bob I]

Only in so far as the system can only talk to one drive on the cable at
a time, so if you have significant activity on the 33 drive, the 133
response will suffer. You CAN add another controller card as the IDE
spec allows for 4 channels at two drives per channel.

 

[Anna]

Bill wrote:
(Snip...)

Only in so far as the system can only talk to one drive on the cable at a
time, so if you have significant activity on the 33 drive, the 133
response will suffer. You CAN add another controller card as the IDE spec
allows for 4 channels at two drives per channel.

Bill:
In terms of your old ATA 33 drive impacting negatively on your ATA 133 drive
while both share the same IDE cable, the answer is "no", it will not. The
ATA 133 drive will perform at its rated speed regardless of the IDE device
on the same IDE connector (we're talking "modern" motherboards-drives here).
Obviously, if both drives were simultaneously interacting with each other,
e.g., you were copying/moving massive amounts of data between the two
drives, then the ATA 33 drive would slow things down. (I assume that's what
Bob was indicating). But that would be due to the fact that the ATA 33 drive
is inherently "slower" than the ATA 133 drive, not because it's sharing the
same IDE cable with the ATA 133 drive.
Anna