Cheetah x15

[WildRhino]

I have just been to Pricewatch.com and found a Seagate Cheetah x15 for $417 (compared to £470 in UK).There seems to be a number of different types of this drive, 80,68 and 40 pin. I will be using an Adaptec 29160n card as the controller, so which is the pin option with the fastest speed and also which will be compatible?

Are these drives really that noisy and how rteliable are Seagate with SCSI?

Also,should I opt for retail or OEM when buying the Adaptec card ($200 compared to £200)

£/$ 1/1.5

 

[Guest]

It's not really a matter of which interface performs the best, because there is only one of those interfaces that is designed to work with that controller. You want the 68pin LVD ultra 160 interface.

If you don't need the LVD cable with LVD term, OEM is fine.

***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***

 

[Guest]

Seagate SCSI drives are fast and reliable. But have you read any reviews on the drive, or comparisons? I think you would be suprised to find that the performance of this drive is great for SCSI, but you need to compare it to the latest offerings from IBM, like the 75gxp, WD 400BB, Seagates own Barracuda III 40gb, etc... as I think you will find that the newer ATA drivers will run right with the SCSI units. The main purpose for SCSI is for multiple requests from hundreds of users, not one person. Go to www.storagereview.com, click on Database at the middle top of the web page, and choose all the drives you want to compare. You can also read the individual review on the drive. If this drive is only for you in your personal machine, you are wasting your money, as a faster drive will be along in a few months. They expect these drives to be in servers grouped together in 6 or more clusters on RAID devices that do not need to be upgraded or replaced for many many years, not the average performance desktop user.

 

[Guest]

WildRhino: Here are your own words on hard drives.... why are you wasting your money?!

"There will always be "something better is right around the corner", all the time so don't listen to this nonsense."

 

[Guest]

IMO, since the X15 has about half the seek time of the 75GXP and Cuda ATA III and 66% better I/Ometer performance, the X15 is head and shoulders above it's IDE counterparts. Even the benchmark (Winbench) showing the X15 in the worst light is still 6% higher and this benchmark is suspicious (many people think it is aging and less valid). You also need to take into account that the next generation X15 is due out it a few months as well which will have denser platters and higher STR.

 

[WildRhino]

It was actually a direct quote from yourself, hence the quotation marks.

 

[Guest]

I think that SCSI has its place, it is faster in some places, no doubt that SCSI will be around for some time, but at the expense of one 18Gb drive for $400+, why would an individual for desktop use need such a drive? I have not seen any posts here yet as to why anyone could utilize such a drive, many reasons exists, but no one person has bothered to explain the benefits to themselves for a $400+ drive.

 

[Guest]

whoah down there..

"but no one person has bothered to explain the benefits to themselves for a $400+ drive."

It's all perspective about price (and probably a dash of ego). I have said my opinion about this several times on this board. For some, it is worth it to pay the premium for the minimal gain in access times. Can you tell the difference.. yeap, and I don't know because I haven't used the drive, but I would say it's a bigger difference with the X15. Which means it's just a little better than the minimal gain you normally see from typical 10K SCSI drives. But nonetheless, the minimal gain is there and noticeable to some degree. And the price you have to pay for that whether it's worth it is relative.



***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***

 

[Guest]

point well taken! Thanks

 

[Guest]

One thing to realize is that the hard drive (along with the bus and even the memory) is a major bottleneck in computer systems. Anything that helps relieve that bottleneck will make a difference in system performance.

 

[Guest]

I actually have the 29160N and Cheetah X15 myself for my Audio-computer. And now it easily swallows 8 channel recording simultaneously with 24 channel audio playback at 24/96 without any hint of a stutter! I was never able to get that before. And I had 10K drives before, and before that I had Aha-2940U2W card and Seagate Hawk drives and compared with the latest IBM 75GXP IDE-drives on ATA-100. Well, The Hawk set-up beat the IBM hands down... And My set-up is just a glorified home-studio set-up. Nothing really fancy, I just got the computer needed to simulate that my studio would be some numbers bigger than it is...
So, there is one reason to have expensive Scsi-stuff instead of cheapo IDE-stuff...


Best regards
Bo Eriksson
ber@donnwell.se (Work)
snake@sdplus.com (private)

 

[Guest]

Pay the premium for minimal gains in access times? Almost half the access time of the 75GXP does not seem like minimal to me.

IBM recently announced their entry to the 15k market and Fujitsu soon afterwards. For a short period, IBM and Fujitsu will enjoy a period of eing top dawgs with higher density platters and more storage space, then a couple months later Seagate's 2nd generation 15k drive will appear.

 

[Guest]

Also,should I opt for retail or OEM when buying the Adaptec card ($200 compared to £200)

Note that the retail cards sometimes come with cables (mine came with two 68 pin LVD 5 connector cables and one 50 pin cable) whereas the OEM typically do not. They're not hugely expensive, but if you're going to use all two/three and you don't already have them, then it might bring the prices together.

The 5-device cable lists at the adaptec site for $100 (just the cable!!!) or on pricewatch for $39.
<A HREF="http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/cableprodindex.html?parentcat=%2fCables%2fInternal+Cables%2f68-pin+Wide+SCSI" target="_new">http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/cableprodindex.html?parentcat=%2fCables%2fInternal+Cables%2f68-pin+Wide+SCSI</A>

 

[Guest]

"Almost half the access time of the 75GXP does not seem like minimal to me."

That's for the X15. I made that statement for high RPM SCSI drives in general.. I even later said the X15 is probably better than the minimal gain you generally see..This still doesn't change the fact that it's relative. Almost half the access time of the 75GXP may not seem minimal to you (even though I didn't say this), but it may to someone else considering the price. Read what I write and not what you think I write. Or what you want me to write so you can post meaningless flames (from a thread of 2weeks ago..please!).

>>>IBM recently announced their entry to the 15k market and Fujitsu soon afterwards. For a short period, IBM and Fujitsu will enjoy a period of eing top dawgs with higher density platters and more storage space, then a couple months later Seagate's 2nd generation 15k drive will appear.<<<

What's your point and who cares?




***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***

 

[RamaV]

To throw in my 2 cents, i looked at the X15, and here is what i found out that helped me makeup my mind at least about this particular drive: Seagate wanted to be the first and fastest with a 15k rpm and the lowest seek time. THey acheived this, with smaller disks that spin faster. Where they screwed the pooch from what i read was that they used the last generation heads and firmware for it (and remember this drive aint new at all..last generation for that drive is back there) and that it wasnt really the most reliable drive. I agree the Quantam AtlasII from the same company looks like a better product, as does the fujitsu that Tom recently reviewed. But heres a wildcard for those who may not have heard about it:

<A HREF="http://www.storage.ibm.com/press/hdd/20010130.htm" target="_new">http://www.storage.ibm.com/press/hdd/20010130.htm</A>

This seems to be one HELLUVA impressive drive.

Ultrastar 36Z15
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

15,000 RPM;
Two capacities: 36.7 GB / 18.4 GB;
2.0 ms average latency;
As low as 3.4 ms seek time;
Media transfer rate up to 647 Mb/sec.;
Up to 52.8 MB/sec sustained data transfer rate;
4 MB cache;
10.7 billion bits per square inch areal density;
12 / 8 GMR heads;
6 / 4 glass-substrate disk platters;
Interfaces: Ultra 160 SCSI and Ultra320 SCSI;
1Gb/s and 2Gb/s Fibre-Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL-2); and
Acoustics and power consumption comparable to 10,000 RPM drives.

Only thing im curious about is...Ultra320....can the PCI bus even handle these speeds..?

Rama

" He who (BLEEPS) nuns, will later join the church " Joe Strummer, The Clash - "Death or Glory"

 

[Guest]

64bit 66mhz pci bus can handle up to 533MB/s. 32bit 33mhz pci bus can only handle 133MB/s... not even enough for a saturated ultra160 (doesn't really matter unless you've got a couple of drives in a stripped array or transferring lots of data from somewhere else on the pci bus. just my opinion but i'd wait for the next generation of 10k cheetah drives by seagate (should be out soon). the seek times won't be as good, but they have higher sustained data transfer rates and probably won't be as expensive.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by DeSilentio on 02/12/01 02:11 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Whoa... calm down there, big guy. The X15 is currently the fastest (non solid-state) hard drive there is, head and shoulders above the competition. To dismiss the gains as minimal no matter what the price is ignorance, especially when many people say the 75GXP is fast and the X15 has half the access time.

As for the upcoming Utrastar 15k and Fujitsu 15k, these will soon be the fastest (non solid-state) hard drives in the market until the X15's successor shortly afterwards. The competition will likely push down the prices of 15k drives, and most other 10k and 7.2k drives as well. I think this is something most people would care to know.

 

[RamaV]

Hola,
Well wasnt tryin to rain on anyones parade, really hehe. Instead of me regurgitating it all to read, ill just putup the link for one of the reviews i found that gave me more insight into the X15. Def worth a read in this discussion (as opposed to me repeating it all)
<A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/pipreviews/0,8827,258669,00.html" target="_new">http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/pipreviews/0,8827,258669,00.html</A>

Just tryin ta help~!
Rama

" He who (BLEEPS) nuns, will later join the church " Joe Strummer, The Clash - "Death or Glory"

 

[Ncogneto]

err, actually you are incorect the fibre channel drives are the fastest as long as money does not seem to be an issue.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

The only difference between SCSI and fibre channel is the interface. The X15 fibre channel is the fastest fibre channel drive there currently is, but the only difference fibre channel would make is in a very large RAID setup where you would want a STR of more than 160MB/sec (SCSI Ultra 160's max STR). The actual drive speed and performance of SCSI and fibre channel drives remain the same.

 

[Ncogneto]

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=6997#6997

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

don't want to be too knit picky, but i think the advantages in fibre chanel lies in how an array is setup and the possibility of HUGE arrays. a dual channel u160 card is much cheaper (and i believe there are cards with 4 and 5 channels) and provides more bandwidth than a fibre channel card does (but you are still limited to 30 devices and a "messy" setup, where you are not with fibre channel.)

 

[Guest]

Fibre channel is 100 MB/s but is also full duplex (it is a ring) so effectively it reaches 200 MB/s which gives it a slightly more bandwidth than SCSI 160 by about 40 MB/sec theoretically. You would need a huge array to achieve this. It is also redundant in that data can travel either direction on the ring.

There is also other advantages in fibre channel such as allowing for more devices and a cleaner setup, but these aren't really performance issues.

The speed and performance of the actual hard drive remains the same though. The only differences in overall system performance I can think of may come in multitasking, CPU utilization, and redundancy which the interface may have an effect on. I don't know what the difference would be, but the X15 would be the fastest in either interface anyway.

 

[Guest]

>>The X15 is currently the fastest (non solid-state) hard drive there is, head and shoulders above the competition. <<

So?.. what's the point.. most people considering the drive probably know this. Any other reason it needs to be said? Head and Shoulders? HAVE YOU EVEN used the drive.....?

>>>To dismiss the gains as minimal no matter what the price is ignorance, especially when many people say the 75GXP is fast and the X15 has half the access time. <<<

No it's not and either way I didn't. Only in your perspective world it is ignorance. But it is also intelligence in your perspective to misquote people. Go figure.

>>As for the upcoming Utrastar 15k and Fujitsu 15k, these will soon be the fastest (non solid-state) hard drives in the market until the X15's successor shortly afterwards. The competition will likely push down the prices of 15k drives, and most other 10k and 7.2k drives as well. I think this is something most people would care to know. <<

Vapor Ware that's not here that likely will.. well make that point then because with all that vagueness I won't guess at what you mean. This is all the more reason for people reading this thread NOW and considering a drive that already exists NOW not to purchase it.

***Hey I run Intel... but let's get real***

 

[Guest]

i guess my point was that a decent fibre channel adapter is over $500 (cheapest on pricewatch is 245) while a dual channel ultra 160 card can be had for under $300 (cheapest on pricewatch is 235). you get 320MB/s with a dual channel ultra160 card while only 200MB/s with the fibre channel, so bandwidth is not the issue in buying fibre channel. you get more performance for less cost with scsi (sounds funny to say that).