IDE Raid vs SCSI hd

I would say that Modern IDE drives are pretty quick. I just installed a couple of 120gb Hard disks (7200rpm) and have got some very good response times from it.

When you say RAID, are you using an IDE RAID with four devices? I presume software RAID?

Cheers

Moon.



<b>Moonglum Clampflower</b> :smile:

read the FAQ, and check out the scsi vs ide links. cheers.

<b>Before visiting THG i was a clueless noob. Now im still clueless, but look at my nice title!<b>

Instead of me having a massive rant, here a just a few links to wet your appetite.hehehe

<A HREF="http://www.raid.com/04_01_01.html" target="_new">http://www.raid.com/04_01_01.html&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.paralan.com/glos.html" target="_new">http://www.paralan.com/glos.html&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://scsi.radified.com/scsi_01.htm" target="_new">http://scsi.radified.com/scsi_01.htm&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/scsi/" target="_new">http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/scsi/&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://scsifaq.org:9080/scsi_faq/" target="_new">http://scsifaq.org:9080/scsi_faq/&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.iwill.net/whats_new/pic/RAID.htm" target="_new">http://www.iwill.net/whats_new/pic/RAID.htm&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com/" target="_new">http://www.storagereview.com/&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/79/" target="_new">http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/79/&lt;/A>

<A HREF="http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/296/" target="_new">http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/296/&lt;/A>

Happy reading :wink:




*<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/" target="_new"> I dare you to click this link, go on click it!</A> :wink:

Greetings again...!

I read threw most of the links provided, but they offered nothing more than fodder and illogical and opinionated debate..!

My question is not wich is better IDE (serial or even ATA/133) or SCSI....

...but

IDE RAID vs a SINGLE SCSI drive..!

I currently run a Raid with some exspensive IDE drives and am not all thrilled about it performance.

Some SCSI seeks times are 3.5ms and no SCSI device hogs CPU cycles like any RAID does... I am seeking ultimate performance.

I see no Benchmarks in any of these links provided.. just banter.

I would love to see a shoot-out with 2 High-performance IDE in a RAID config (serial ATA) VS a single 15k SCSI drive...

Number are FACT...!



************************************

-Brooch

Hanging ideas wherever I can

Yeah I would like to see a shootout, and I had asked THG to do it and I am still waiting, here is a snippet of info for you which again does not tell you much: <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h..." target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h...;/A>

SCSI raid is no doubt faster, more reliable, less cpu intensive, expensive, and hotter, but you have virtually answered your own question. The only thing I can add is to gain the benifit of the increased bandwidth through the PCI bus with SCSI is to have the controller in a 66Mhz/64bit PCI slot which at the moment as far as I know is limited to dual CPU mainboards. However between the drives on the raid you will get the full bandwidth depending on the choice of raid.

*<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/" target="_new"> I dare you to click this link, go on click it!</A> :wink:

Yeah I would like to see a shootout, and I had asked THG to do it and I am still waiting, here is a snippet of info for you which again does not tell you much: <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h..." target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h...;/A>

SCSI raid is no doubt faster, more reliable, less cpu intensive, expensive, and hotter, but you have virtually answered your own question. The only thing I can add is to gain the benifit of the increased bandwidth through the PCI bus with SCSI is to have the controller in a 66Mhz/64bit PCI slot which at the moment as far as I know is limited to dual CPU mainboards. However between the drives on the raid you will get the full bandwidth depending on the choice of raid.



The link below is down for the time being!

*<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/" target="_new"> I dare you to click this link, go on click it!</A> :wink:

Yeah I would like to see a shootout, and I had asked THG to do it and I am still waiting, here is a snippet of info for you which again does not tell you much: <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h..." target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/raid-02.h...;/A>

SCSI raid is no doubt faster, more reliable, less cpu intensive, expensive, and hotter, but you have virtually answered your own question. The only thing I can add is to gain the benifit of the increased bandwidth through the PCI bus with SCSI is to have the controller in a 66Mhz/64bit PCI slot which at the moment as far as I know is limited to dual CPU mainboards. However between the drives on the raid you will get the full bandwidth depending on the choice of raid.



The link below is down for the time being!

*<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/" target="_new"> I dare you to click this link, go on click it!</A> :wink:

Scotty called it. It's good.
The triple post isn't.
The impatience of hitting the send button 3 times is.
The coincidence of the forum being updated at the same time isn't.


(insert null score here)

I sorry for being impatient :tongue: Gotta love a triple post. heh


Anyway, I miss read his post; the question was if a single SCSI hard drive is faster than IDE raid.
Well yes and no, burst speed and seek times should be but depending on the IDE raid config' and hard drives you use in comparrison to a SCSI HD.

IMO data transfer speeds will be simular perhaps with the exception of SCSI to SCSI data transfers on the same PCI SCSI controller card, particularly if all SCSI devices are U160 or above then the transfer speed between them will be much faster.

On your common 32bit PCI bus main boards the limitation for SCSI is the PCI bus and at an un-educated guess this would be more or less the same transfer speed as anything through the IDE channels. Sustained speed may be better with IDE raid compared to a single SCSI hard drive.
The only big advantage as I mentioned above is in having a 66Mhz/64 bit PCI slot to install the appropriate SCSI controller card into, then its bye bye IDE raid :smile: .

Personally I would go with IDE raid unless you are considering a SCSI raid through a 66Mhz/64 bit PCI slot. My reason being that the single SCSI HD’s performance versus IDE raid either way is so closely matched and the money would be better spent on IDE drives with an 8MB cache. Well that’s my opinion anyway, I could be wrong on a few facts so I invite others to correct me if I am wrong. :wink:

Once I tried SCSI I never went back. It just feels faster, smoother etc, especially in the NT's. I think the SCSI disk setup is the reason I am able to stay with a platform longer than most people, my systems are just faster.

All I can say is you have to experience the feeling to understand. The numbers don't seem to give an accurate account of the gains for some reason.

No, I haven't tried any of the 8MB cache 7200RPM IDE drives, and understand they are starting to close the gaps.

If you want the ultimate performance which far surpasses even SCSI RAID look at some solid state drives. MMmmm.

Yeah I would love $olid $tate drive$, I also agree to experience SCSI for yourself is something I can not explain, I love my set-up of 2 x 18Gb u160 drives :smile: . Some criticise SCSI but the only thing I have against it is the cost.

I'll sell you a 3-Channel SCSI RAID card with 64MB of cache for $100!

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

Thanks for the further Input...!

I myself think it would be a close battle with 2 high-performance IDE (7.2k 8mb buffer..etc) raid set-up vs a single SCSI drive... but like i said it would be a guess.


In my OLD Amiga 300 i had a SCSI set up and even by today standards i remeber how Smoth and fast that drive was... IDE just seems "clunky". (my AMiga's ssek time was 8.5ms... lol 10 years ago)

IDE in no matter what confige still eats up CPU usage... even on a hardware based Raid card with the i970 chip. I like the idea of all sub-systems working independant of each other and the CPU left for Software/OS calculations.


I think it is time for a Serial ATA Raid (ata/133) VS SCSI (single drive) shout-out. And i mean ALL aspects of the drive sub-sytem. Raid sripping is nice, but the 3.5ms seek times and the throughput of SCSI is even nicer.... not to mention the throughput.

I do not know ow much SCSI is being hinder by the PCI bus... wich brings to mind, PCI has been out for almost 10 years and seems a bottle neck... why dont all traces on the mother board just run at 266MHZ ..?



**************************************

************************************

-Brooch

Hanging ideas wherever I can