Wiring up IDE devices

[dhml at comcast.net (David Hummel)]

On Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 02:51:51AM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
> 
> I ended up getting the Sonata case.  Since it's sitting next to a
> half-broken hulk of a case that's been dropped several times, that my
> server's guts are running in until the new box is ready, it's hard to
> tell exactly how quiet it is.
> 
> Anywho, in the Sonata case, the optical media area is kinda far from
> the hard drives.  I usually wire my IDE chain like:
> 
> IDE0M  Main boot hard drive, software, etc
> IDE0S  Optical drive of some sort
> IDE1M  Second hard drive, mostly data, apache documentroot, tmp, etc
> IDE1S  Optical drive of some sort
> 
> The theory is both hard drives should be on separate channels so they
> can talk at the same time.  The problem is, none of the IDE cables I
> have will reach from the hard drive slots to the optical slots.
> 
> I suppose I could shop around and find differently-spaced IDE cables
> that might reach, but since EVERY ONE of my current crop of cables has
> about the same distance from the master connector to the slave
> connector, the experienced geek in me is telling me that I must be
> trying to do something that ought not be done.  That that the  Gods
> must have intended the two hard drives to go on one controller and the
> two optical drives to go on the other controller.

You certainly can buy IDE cables with different spacings and lengths.
The official max length is 18 inches, according to the ATA standard.
People use 24 and 36 inch cables with success, but this isn't
recommended and increases the chances of data corruption.  You could
probably get away with longer cables if they are good quality
80-conductor cables.  Unfortunately I can't recommend a source since I'm
not that familiar with electronics outlets on the east coast.

-David