just wanted to know if connecting the max no. of IDE devices(4) in my case would slow down the overall access speed and performance of my system....?

got a SATA HDD
a cd-rom,combo drive,dvd-writer and an IDE HDD>..

any ideas for the best combination for master and slave??

it should not slow down your computer at all by adding more IDE devices. as for master and slave combinations, it really doesnt matter, whatever floats your BOAT. thanks homer...but in my pc i got now,i have my HDD and cd-rom put on the PRIMARY master and slave...and the combo drive on a individual cable as the secondary master..

whenever i copy data from a cd to the HDD,the time taken by the cd-rom drive is much much more when compared to the time taken when i copy the same data from the combo drive...both are 52x DRIVES..why is this then??I'm assuming the power supply is up to all of this.

Try the Primary hard drive on IDE 1 Master and the most used ROM device (the combo drive?) on IDE2 master. Your transfer rate should be better. do you have DMA mode on/u mean the power supply affetcs the data tranfer speed??? i gotta 300W power supply...I mean the power supply can affect the proper functioning of the computer. Is 300w enough for 6 hard drives and the other components? Here's an estimator:

http://journeysystems.com/power_supply_calculator.phpKarthic:

GX1's advice is sound, as the CD-ROM drive will slow down the hard drive connected to it as a slave. You might consider using the hard drive connected to the same controller as the optical drive for backups or STORING files you will not use often.

Doccool