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I found that, back in the day, simply buying Plextors was the simplest solution. For best results when burning, you'd want the optical drive to be the master de

I found that, back in the day, simply buying Plextors was the simplest solution. For best results when burning, you'd want the optical drive to be the master device on the secondary IDE bus. Of course IDE only allowed two devices on a bus, with generally only two buses. If you wanted more you had to go with (parallel) SCSI, which allowed up to 8 IDs (one taken up by the controller) with the 8-bit bus, and up to 16 IDs on the 16-bit controller: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI_high_byte_termination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI_high_byte_termination Just don't forget to put the properly-ohmed termination at the correct location on the cable. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_SCSI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_SCSI There was folklore that said three terminations were needed to get things to work: two electrical, one on each end of the cable; and one termination of a rooster at midnight around five black candles.

brudgers 5y ago
I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember adding additional drives using ISA IDE controller cards.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  Which does not contradict what I said: > Of course IDE only allowed two devices on a bus, with generally only two buses. Most motherboards only had two buses, which each bus have two devices. Adding another card would allow another 2x2 drives. Adding a SCSI card would have allowed for another seven devices (later fifteen). Most folks though didn't need that many at home.
  - selimnairb 5y ago
    Also, SCSI drives were more expensive (but usually performed better), so most stuck with IDE’s limitations.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    SCSI stuff was way too expensive for poor college kids. Funnily enough ATAPI was just a slightly cut down version of SCSI run over ATA. There was little reason for the big SCSI price premium except that the vendors thought they could get more money out of businessmen and Mac users.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      SCSI drives were faster because higher RPM devices were available. 10 kRPM and 15 kRPM (!!!) SCSI drives were a thing, but I don't think there were many (any?) IDE drives that spun that fast. WD's 10 kRPM drive made quite the splash when it was announced, IIRC: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_Raptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_Raptor Whether a home user "needed" that kind of speed was quite another thing.
      - brudgers 5y ago
        Most businesses didn't need those fast drives either. Marginal disk speed increase did not contributing to the bottom line. I mean if you're going to disk, you've already lost money.
      - bbarnett 5y ago
        There was also more queue depth, allowing scsi drives to better order reads. And hot swapping was very trouesome with IDE (not to be mistaken for newer eide), where as scsi was much better at hot swapping early on. SCSI also had more bandwith than ide, and scsi2 was around before I could get eide/dma5?(80 conductor) cables/drives. Man, memories.
  - brudgers 5y ago
    If there’s a contradiction it’s that it wasn’t bread versus cake. It was bread or nothing. IDE cards were under $10 at times. SCSI devices were made from unobtainium.
  - mrighele 5y ago
    It's also worth remembering that several sound card models used to have an extra IDE slot, although they generally supported CD-ROM drives and not hard disks.
omgitsabird 5y ago
> There was folklore that said three terminations were needed to get things to work: two electrical, one on each end of the cable; and one termination of a rooster at midnight around five black candles. I count five terminations and three kinds of terminations.
eitland 5y ago
> There was folklore that said three terminations were needed to get things to work: two electrical, one on each end of the cable; and one termination of a rooster at midnight around five black candles. A consultant I worked with claimed that a dog toy looking like a chicken would suffice - at least for early VMware upgrades but I suspect this has been going on for longer. They'd even stitch it together and put it back on the shelf for next time. He was very competent in a number of other things (database design and Java) so I have just taken his word for it. The deity I worship cares less about chickens and more about behavior these days[1] so I cannot verify. [1]: actually never actually did if my understanding is correct)

brudgers 5y ago

I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember adding additional drives using ISA IDE controller cards.

throw0101a 5y ago
Which does not contradict what I said: > Of course IDE only allowed two devices on a bus, with generally only two buses. Most motherboards only had two buses, which each bus have two devices. Adding another card would allow another 2x2 drives. Adding a SCSI card would have allowed for another seven devices (later fifteen). Most folks though didn't need that many at home.
- selimnairb 5y ago
  Also, SCSI drives were more expensive (but usually performed better), so most stuck with IDE’s limitations.
- jandrese 5y ago
  SCSI stuff was way too expensive for poor college kids. Funnily enough ATAPI was just a slightly cut down version of SCSI run over ATA. There was little reason for the big SCSI price premium except that the vendors thought they could get more money out of businessmen and Mac users.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    SCSI drives were faster because higher RPM devices were available. 10 kRPM and 15 kRPM (!!!) SCSI drives were a thing, but I don't think there were many (any?) IDE drives that spun that fast. WD's 10 kRPM drive made quite the splash when it was announced, IIRC: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_Raptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Digital_Raptor Whether a home user "needed" that kind of speed was quite another thing.
    - brudgers 5y ago
      Most businesses didn't need those fast drives either. Marginal disk speed increase did not contributing to the bottom line. I mean if you're going to disk, you've already lost money.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      There was also more queue depth, allowing scsi drives to better order reads. And hot swapping was very trouesome with IDE (not to be mistaken for newer eide), where as scsi was much better at hot swapping early on. SCSI also had more bandwith than ide, and scsi2 was around before I could get eide/dma5?(80 conductor) cables/drives. Man, memories.
- brudgers 5y ago
  If there’s a contradiction it’s that it wasn’t bread versus cake. It was bread or nothing. IDE cards were under $10 at times. SCSI devices were made from unobtainium.
- mrighele 5y ago
  It's also worth remembering that several sound card models used to have an extra IDE slot, although they generally supported CD-ROM drives and not hard disks.

omgitsabird 5y ago

eitland 5y ago

> There was folklore that said three terminations were needed to get things to work: two electrical, one on each end of the cable; and one termination of a rooster at midnight around five black candles. A consultant I worked with claimed that a dog toy looking like a chicken would suffice - at least for early VMware upgrades but I suspect this has been going on for longer. They'd even stitch it together and put it back on the shelf for next time. He was very competent in a number of other things (database design and Java) so I have just taken his word for it. The deity I worship cares less about chickens and more about behavior these days[1] so I cannot verify. [1]: actually never actually did if my understanding is correct)