question about master and slave drives

911aaron

911aaron

New Member
How does Master and Slave hard drives work? Is the slave just basically an add on, increasing the maximum capacity for storage of data or is it like a back up drive in case the master drive fails? Or does it do something else?
Would i need to install windows XP on both drives to access them?

Sorry still learning.
 
The master/slave jumper setting for ide drives depends mainly on which connector on the ide cable is used for a particular drive. You can have a single drive by itself on either the end or middle connector. The jumper is set according to which one is used.

For sata drives the port the thinner data cable is plugged into determines whether the drive will be seen as Primary master or slave or Secondary master or slave for that type of hard drive.

The default boot drive or the drive seen as first in the list in the bios setup will be the one the bios searches for boot information in order to see the OS load. If you have Windows on one drive that would be set as the default hard drive. With ide drives or with one present the Windows installer will place boot files and information there even if Windows is installed onto a sata drive. Most will simply unplug an ide drive present to see Windows and all boot information on the selected sata drive and later plug the ide back in to see Windows detect it as a new hardware found.
 
911aaron said:
How does Master and Slave hard drives work? Is the slave just basically an add on, increasing the maximum capacity for storage of data or is it like a back up drive in case the master drive fails? Or does it do something else?
Would i need to install windows XP on both drives to access them?

Sorry still learning.
Click to expand...

Yea, slave is basically just an added drive. It can be set as a back up drive using back up programs, but basically its just another drive. Just like another partition.


  • you have a drive (master) the letter C
  • A slave will come in and it will be a differ ent letter (dfeg)

and o yea, hey PCeye. You havent been around as of late. <-my vocab as improved :D lol
 
If the 320gb drive in your sig is an ide type drive but you have an optical drive plugged in as master at the end of the cable Windows will still be seen as C while the hard drive is in the slave position on the cable. Most will automatically plug an optical drive in as slave to the hard drive while either position will see Windows run.

That would be on a board seeing only one ide channel since with two channels the optical would be set as master on the secondary ide channel with the hard drive as master on the primary. A second hard drive likely for storage would then be the slave to the OS host/boot drive.

Sata on the other hand offers two distinct advantages of first having thinner data cables not the wide flat grey colored ribbon type generally seeing better air flow. Plus you can have 8 sata ports on a board and plug a single drive into the last port and still see that set as the default boot device by simply moving that to the top of the list of hard drives. The port determines position without the need for setting a jumper for master or slave making things easier there.

Good work! Vizy93 You'll get better as you go along. We all have to start somewhere.
 
I see. I got a better understanding of it now. Thanks. :) Just to let you know PCeye, i use SATA not IDE. Thanks for the extra info though.

One question, would it be smarter to get a single 500gb 7200 RPM Hard Drive compared to two 250gb 7200 RPM Hard Drives?
 
That would be upto you there. With a single 500gb drive as host you would likely end up with a large amount of unused drive space and end up creating a second storage partition there for backing things up. With two 250s one would be set as the storage device following the OS host drive.

Here a pair of 500gb sata models were added onto a pair of 250gb ide models for work with video captures and editing where drive space was a commodity in need. Video files chew up a drive fast! For the average user seeing photos and less drive space demanding file types the choice will strictly upto you while many prefer a second drive in case one fails.

Even if you lose files you still have a drive to work with in that circumstance while a single large capacity drive allows for a possible dual boot as well as a third smaller storage partition. You have to look at how you will be using your system there first to plan out what will work the best in that sense. You can also add a second 500gb model for storage later if you find you have need for a large single primary.
 
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