I have 1 cd-rom drive and 3 hard disks... My primary IDE consists of 1 hard disk (MASTER) and 1 cd-rom (slave) and secondary IDE has 2 hard disks.

Does making the cd-rom drive SLAVE in my primary IDE makes my computer slower? because i had noticed that before when i have only 2 hard disks and i've PUT it in secondary IDE leaving my primary IDE only cd-rom, it is much fasten than now.

Please advise.I would run the hard drives on the primary CHANNEL, and the optical drives on the secondary. Some THEORIZE that it is faster to have one of each on each channel, but I have never observed that and never do it on my machines.Yes, i've read some forums that it is not advisable to have hard disk and cd-rom in 1 IDE Channel but i don't have any choice coz i really need the 3 hard disks. Is there any possible ways to combine all 3 hard disks in 1 Channel?I believe the answer to that question is no. But, you could by a PCI IDE controller card; gives you additional IDE channels. How about using raid? is using raid cost a lot?Raid will not solve that problem.