[vox-tech] IDE master/slave speed

[Ken Bloom]

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I'm going to begin working on installing a minimalist Debian system on =20
a spare really old computer tomorrow for the Hillel House, and today I =20
did a hardware upgrade installing an additional hard drive that I =20
canniblaized from another spare really old computer they had lying =20
around.

The new configuration is as follows:

64MB ram
/dev/hda 1GB
/dev/hdc CD-ROM
/dev/hdd 2GB

/dev/hdd is the drive installed this morning, because that's where =20
there was physically space for it, and I that's how I could connect the =20
IDE cable after I found the physical space.

I recall hearing somewhere that if a HDD is a slave to something slow =20
(like a CD-ROM drive), then that HDD will will also be really slow.

I'd like to find out whether I'll need to re-arrange these drives to =20
get decent performance, so I have three questions:
a) Is a CD-ROM drive really slow as an IDE device?
b) Will a slow master slow down the slave?

If I have to rearrange the drives as master/slave, then:
c) Do cable positions matter concerning master/slave configuration or =20
just the jumper settings?


In case you all want to comment, my proposed configuration is:
 * x-window-system
 * icewm
 * xftree
 * galeon
 * openoffice.org
 * custom kernel with the supermount patch applied from the package
   kernel-patch-2.4-supermount-ng, because I don't expect them to
   understand or care about mount/umount logic on their floppies.

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