What is Cable Select on hard drives?

[DiseasedDonkey]

I have seen cable select as an option on hard drives and cdroms for years. I know it is on every drive, but I have no clue what they are ever used for. Any ideas? What the heck are they there?

 

[dkozloski]

If you have the correct cable and system, you just set the jumpers on the drives to "cable select" rather than master and slave and the system will take care of itself.

 

[NOSOUP4U]

I wonder if this feature affects the 1) performance of the device and 2) the time it takes to boot up the computer.

 

[Ben]

A lot of OEM's use it already.

 

[Factor5]

NOSOUP4U: No, it has no preformance difference, i use it, i just set all my drives to cs, then when i interchange drives, no setup is required, of course you have to have a cs cable to do this, if you look on your cable, it shou ld look likr there is wire missing out of one of your wires in your ribbon cable, if so, it IS a cable select capable cable, if not, go buy one, they're cheap, cheap, cheap, your drive on the end of the cable is master, and the drive in the middle is slave, as you probably have guessed. anyway, thats enough talking out of my @$$ for now, c ya guys.