achieving fastest dvd reads + writes

[supernova777]

so i was just looking inside my mdd 867mhz
and i realized it says ATA33 on the ide connection that the cd/dvd drives are connected to..
2 connections near that area..
1x ATA33, and 1 x ATA66,
i believe the ATA100 connection is over at the back near the processor + rear of the machine
which would make that the preferred location for your boot drive? having your disk on the faster ata-100 connection..
but of course on mine, im using the Sata PCI adapter for my boot drive from a sata drive..
which has left both the ata-66 + ata-100 connections empty..
i just tried to plug the cd/dvd drives into the ATA-66 connection
but the cable was too short to reach!
which leaves me wondering..are all cd/dvds unable to read at ata-66 speeds anyway?
or was this a limitation of 2002 era.. ? and also leaves me wondering that.. if i was to swap out this ide cable
for a longer one, would there be any benefit of attaching my cd/dvd drives to the available ATA-66
ide connection... i wonder if this would yielf faster install times when installing from cd/dvd media?
or faster disc burning times?

perhaps they made this cable short because cd/dvd drives of 2002 were not able to reach throughput exceeding the bandwidth
of ATA-33 connection? my next question would be.. how fast is the fastest cd/dvd drive in mb/s throughput?

im now looking up further info on the topic of ata bandwidth related to cd/dvds
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1238955
this thread speculates that having a slower ata-33 device as a master on an ata-66 connection would slow down the other device to ata-66 speed
no question there is a difference in speed between ata-33 + ata-66... now i just have to find out what speed my dvd drive is capable of..

thoughts?

[supernova777]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM


Common data transfer speeds for CD-ROM drives
Transfer speed   KiB/s   Mbit/s   MiB/s [10]   RPM
1×   150   1.2288   0.146   200–500
2×   300   2.4576   0.293   400-1,000
4×   600   4.9152   0.586   800–2,000
8×   1,200   9.8304   1.17   1,600–4,000
10×   1,500   12.288   1.46   2,000–5,000
12×   1,800   14.7456   1.76   2,400–6,000
20×   1,200–3,000   up to 24.576   up to 2.93   4,000 (CAV)
32×   1,920–4,800   up to 39.3216   up to 4.69   4,800 (CAV)
36×   2,160–5,400   up to 44.2368   up to 5.27   7,200 (CAV)
40×   2,400–6,000   up to 49.152   up to 5.86   8,000 (CAV)
48×   2,880–7,200   up to 58.9824   up to 7.03   9,600 (CAV)
52×   3,120–7,800   up to 63.8976   up to 7.62   10,400 (CAV)
56×   3,360–8,400   up to 68.8128   up to 8.20   11,200 (CAV)
72×   6,750–10,800   up to 88.4736   up to 10.5   2,000 (multi-beam)

[supernova777]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA

according to this ATA-33 is top speed of 33.3 mb/s

ok so from this information we can say
that the issue of not "Reaching full potential speed"
will only arise if u have a cd/dvd that is 32 speed or higher

anything less and there is no potential speed lost
assuming in this chart above that cd is the same as "dvd"

what speed were the original apple cd/dvds that shipped with the machine?

Standard Optical:   8X "Combo Drive"   Standard Disk:   None
Details:   Apple reported that the 8X DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo drive "reads DVDs at 8X, writes CD-R at 16X, writes CD-RW at 10X, and reads CDs at 32X". By custom order, it also could be configured with a second optical drive. Both optical drives use a EIDE (ATA-3) bus.

Unlike the "Quicksilver 2002" that it replaced, an internal Zip 250 drive was not available build-to-order.

ok so there we have it!

8x this is a non issue
after a quick check on ebay i cant see any parallel ata drives faster then 14x
and i did see some sata cd/dvd that were listed as 24x

not sure if there are any that go faster then 32x

ok so even if u were to buy a new 24x sata dvd reader/writer
and attach it to ATA-33 port via a Sata-Pata adapter
this would be more than enough bandwidth for the connection
and u would have a much faster dvd read speed
!
with potentially a speed jump frm 8x to 24x this is 3 times as fast
and maybe it is worth the 25$ for sata drive + adapter


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-2.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-3.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-4.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-5.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-6.html <-- chart here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-7.html <-- benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-8.html <-- more benchmarks
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-9.html <-- even more benchmarks (lol)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/DVD-Burner,2447-13.html <--- conclusion
according to this chart it lists cd-r at 48x and cd-rw at 32x!

so then perhaps there is a gain to having your cd/dvd attached to a ata-66 connection instead of ata-33!

[MacTron]

so then perhaps there is a gain to having your cd/dvd attached to a ata-66 connection instead of ata-33!

May be...
But ATA-33 can theoretically feed a DVD writer up to 24x and a CD writer up to 220x !
I think you must avoid such writing speed , because the optical quality may be lower (i.e. the disc is less reflective)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_and_DVD_writing_speed