Is this SCSI better than IDE?

Kaisar · Sep 5, 2002

What are your opinions if I can get

IDE
The new Western Digital claiming Access Times of 8.9ms
100 GB - $120 dollars

<<or>>

SCSI
Two Fujitsu 10000 RPMs claiming 4.5ms RAIDed
2 x 18.4 GB - $220 dollars total

Keep in mind I also need a controller if I go SCSI.

Which brings me to my next question, What is the cheapest controller that can handle raiding these babies?

Please give your opinion, I don't know if going SCSI would be THAT much faster with all of these faster IDEs. Thanks.

Edited by kaisar on 09/05/02 04:52 AM.

gaviota · Sep 5, 2002

Both options you mention are hardly comparable because of the differences in size, speed and price.

IDE performs very well for everything, except highend workstations and servers. SCSI is a lot faster and expensive, not for anyone working on a budget.

The "best" options depend on YOUR needs. If you need the 100GB of space, and price is a consideration, then go for IDE. If you need speed and price is no object, then go for SCSI...and stop looking for the cheapest SCSI controller.

__________________________________________________
It's not important to know all the answers, as long as you know how to contact someone who does.Edited by gaviota on 09/05/02 03:17 PM.

Kaisar · Sep 6, 2002

Well I am on a Budget, but I do run massive programs like Togethersoft and I'd like to have the quickest setup possible.
Is there a GOOD (not cheap) scsi controller that I could get that would perform well on a workstation like mine?

Its 2.4GHz 533MHz FSB 512MB RAM etc etc top of the line
but I want to do the right HD setup... personal opinions
are what I base my own on.

Thanks for your help (only person thats ever replied)

lhgpoobaa · Sep 6, 2002

as your on a budget i really reccomend you stay away from SCSI. sure its good, but too pricey.

does your motherboard have onboard RAID?
if so you might want to consider setting up a simple IDE RAID0 array... or buy a IDE raid card if your board isnt equipped.

either way it will be far cheaper than a SCSI solution, with buckets of capacity.

drive wise i reccomend the Western Digital drives with 8mb cache. super zippy units, and good in RAID. the smallest available is the 80Gb 800JB. two of those in raid0 will be FAST.

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gaviota · Sep 6, 2002

http://www.togethersoft.com/products/controlcenter/requirements/windows.jsp states that you need a minimum of 180GB of HD space to run TogetherSoft. This means that you would have to spend several thousands of dollars in SCSI drives to get that kind of space. Since you are on a budget, I recommend you install a couple of Western Digital Special Editions with 8MB cache in a RAID 0 configuration. You would spend about $400 for a 2x120 MB array or about $800 for a 2x200MB one.
Take a look at http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q1/020305/index.html
WD Special Editions can even outperform some SCSI drives.

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buddry · Sep 6, 2002

Of course SCSI is better, but it generally isn't worth the money except for servers.

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eracer325 · Sep 7, 2002

You only need 180MB HDD space to run Together ControlCenter 6.0~
180GB would be WAY too much, man!
I would suggest you to use SCSI instead of IDE because my WD120JB is slow as hell~

Ncogneto · Sep 7, 2002

drive wise i reccomend the Western Digital drives with 8mb cache. super zippy units, and good in RAID. the smallest available is the 80Gb 800JB. two of those in raid0 will be FAST.

So please explain what the extra cache does for you in real world pleeaasee!

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

Ncogneto · Sep 7, 2002

Take a look on ebay and watch for some deals, I picked up a Hitachi drive 10k 16 meg of cache (yeah take that WD) 18.2 gig for 50 bucks. SCSI drives are built better, have longer warranties and are meant to be run 24/7. Yes you will spend more on a setup, but you will be happy with it for a much longer period of time and the access rates simply put anything IDE to shame. These same people that are spouting the wonderous glories of the WD drive will soon be recomending another flavor of the month with the next release of a faster IDE/serial drive.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

gaviota · Sep 7, 2002

Of course we will be recommending another drive when a better one is released...we just can't recommend it now because it hasn't been released!!!
And of course SCSI drives are better, but for that matter, Fibre Channel ones are even better than SCSI.
My recommendation was based on price/performance, not just performance, and as I said in my original reply, the "best" drive depends on YOUR needs.

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lhgpoobaa · Sep 7, 2002

the larger cache facilitates more optimal read writes... hard to explain really, but <A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com" target="_new">http://www.storagereview.com</A> did a review of the 800JB, clickable from the front page. there u can see the performance benefits.

personally comparing my 800JB with my D740X the 800JB has a slightly lower seek time, but higher sustained transfer rate... and is MUCH more zippy handling lots of small files.

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Ncogneto · Sep 7, 2002

And of course SCSI drives are better, but for that matter, Fibre Channel ones are even better than SCSI.

Actually you are incorrect, fibre channel and Scsi drives are identical and differ ony in the interface. The fibre channel protocol brings more to the table yes, but most drives, such as the ten Fc-al drives I own (st336605fcv) have Scsi counterparts that mechanically are the same (st336605lcv).

Of course we will be recommending another drive when a better one is released...we just can't recommend it now because it hasn't been released!!!

Exactly my point. However one might be slightly less inclined to feel the need to "upgrade" to this new latest and greatest if he/she has spent his/her money on a good IO subsystem intially. This should be figured into the cost as well, longevity and years of service.

After all, its the slowest part of the system why not budget a little more money in this area?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

Ncogneto · Sep 7, 2002

the larger cache facilitates more optimal read writes

Huh? Increasing your cache size on the drive has limited impact once you have enough to cover the rotancional latencey of the platter. For this 2 meg is more than sufficient. The drive has no idea what information may be requested from the OS and merely caches data sequentialy. The OS actually does a much better job of guessing what information it may need and setups its own cache buffer in main memory. It most cases the extra money spent for an 8 meg cache drive over its 2 meg counterpart would be better spent on main system memory. There are exceptions where extra cache does make a difference, for instance AV editing. Here, the drives firmware utilizes and uses the extra cache to iron out the transfer variations common in a mechancal drive. This results in a much smoother STR across multiple platters. However, AV drives typically have slighlty slower maximum transfer rates than there non AV counterparts. However, they do offer a much smoother transfer across multiple platters . Did you know that this is what the JB drive was oringinally intended for?

personally comparing my 800JB with my D740X the 800JB has a slightly lower seek time

The maxtor drive has a faster seek. I think this is what you meant to say.

but higher sustained transfer rate

Yes it does. This has more to do with the platter density than the extra cache. STR is nice, however, typical users rarely move large enough chunks of data to notice slightly higher STR's. And if they are, as in the case of the JB drive, they are doing it across the IDE interface, which, quite frankly sucks.

and is MUCH more zippy handling lots of small files

This zippy feeling you described is much more an attribute of faster seeks than sustained transfer. It is what makes the 10k and 15k SCSI drives feel so much faster than the IDE counterparts. It is only on vary rare occasions that the data the OS seeks is actually in the drive cache. If you have a 120 gig drive such as the jb what are the chances that the the data you are requesting is on the miniscule 8 meg cache of the drive? The drive has no clue what to cache.

Taken from storage review:

The WD800JB turns in very typical ATA performance in out server suites; in other words, just as most of its competitors, WD's drive lags behind even the slowest SCSI drives when it comes to multi-user environments.

Now, a little about hard drive benchmarks. First of all a good HDD bench tries to isolate the drive as much as possible from the OS. This is a good thing in the aspect it makes direct comparisons more feasable. However, it has its downside as well. It does not always translate into real world performance. We have seen this over and over with different parts of our computers. For instance take HDD tach. A commonly misunderstood component of that test is the "burst transfer" test. Basicaly its a test of how fast the drive can send information from its cache buffer. Nice and all but it gets misunderstood. A lot of people seem to think that if you are doing alot of small file transfers than this will automatically come form the drives cache. Seldom in the real world is this the case. That information had to get there somehow. And it did, by reading the information from the disk sequntially after its last read operation. Now if it just happens that this data is what you need then great, but as I said earlier this is seldom the case. Do the math, what are the chances of a random 8 megs of data being the data you need when you have upwards of 100 gig of data?

All and all the JB is a good drive, this I admit. I question the impact the additional cache actually has on this aspect of it however. And to make such a statement as it being a replacement for high end SCSI is just laughable. If you want a decent high volume mass storage subsytem then IDE is a solution. However if you want a screaming seat of your pants "feel", then, at this moment, SCSI is the best. It will remain so untill IDE/serial drives break the 7200 Rpm conundrum that they seem to be stuck in.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!Edited by ncogneto on 09/07/02 08:52 PM.

lhgpoobaa · Sep 7, 2002

opps. my bad. your correct. meant to say that the 800JB seeked slower than the D740X

regarding sustained reads, both these drives have the same data density, 2 platters of 40gb per platter... yet the 800JB manages 5mb/sec better accross the media.

if you doubt the value of the extra cache, see if you can dredge up the benchmarks of the 1000JB... included are benchies of the 1000BB. the difference between the two is significant.

i never said it was a 'replacment' for high end scsi. i just said that 2 in raid0 was alot more cost effective for the average person.

Trust Me, Trust Yourself, Trust the Hamster. Anyone else - Shoot Them.

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Scotty35 · Sep 7, 2002

Man that was loud in that font! Anyway, SCI is expensive, faster, hotter,once you learn how to set it up it is fantastic. Did I mention expensive oh well. If you have more than one drive on the bus the transfers are so quick it will leave you wondering wtf was that, did it do it and already!
Then if you raid these beasts it happens almost before you click!! IDE sux yes, but for the everyday user the WD are actually very good or so I hear, the trick is to research on SCSI before you invest otherwise you WILL be caught out. The other thing I have found out is everyone slams certain drive manufactures in IDE but we have to remember that these SCSI drives are made for server markets and must be reliable which is why a 5 year warranty is placed on the drives, what is bad in IDE is not necessarily the case in SCSI.

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Ncogneto · Sep 8, 2002

Man that was loud in that font!

To tell you the truth I don't know wtf happened with the font......don't know how to get it back to normal either.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

Ncogneto · Sep 8, 2002

regarding sustained reads, both these drives have the same data density, 2 platters of 40gb per platter... yet the 800JB manages 5mb/sec better accross the media.

Are you claiming that the extra cache is responsible for this? If so please tell me how tht is possible.

if you doubt the value of the extra cache, see if you can dredge up the benchmarks of the 1000JB... included are benchies of the 1000BB. the difference between the two is significant.

Not only do I doubt the value of the extra cache for everyday usage, I doubt the benchmarks as well. Please read why.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

lhgpoobaa · Sep 8, 2002

nope. i never did that. but SOMETHING is different to get such different read speeds.

and if you doubt the benchmarks and doubt my subjective views then dont get one

simple.

Trust Me, Trust Yourself, Trust the Hamster. Anyone else - Shoot Them.

This sig was proudly brought to you by Hammie

Ncogneto · Sep 8, 2002

I think you are missing my point. Whenever you here someone talk about this drive it always the WD JB with 8 meg cache

I never said it wasn't a nice drive. However, what I am trying to make a point of is the fact that the extra 6 meg of cache does very little if anything in normal everyday usage. Benchmarks that isolate the drive from the OS will show a performance increase, however, in most real world apps the OS is better suited to handle the cacheing in the system buffer. Do to the success of this drive I am sure that we are bound to see other drives with additional cache as well. It will be little more than marketting. Do you remember the first gforce mx's? Remember how a few came equipped with DDR memory? It added nothing.

Guess what? Maxtor will soon offer a drive with an option to have 8 meg of cache the D780 dx....... You starting to see my point?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!Edited by ncogneto on 09/07/02 11:40 PM.

Crashman · Sep 8, 2002

I have an EXCELLENT SCSI RAID card for sale, with 64MB of cache, for $100. It's three channel, supports up to 45 hard drives, at 80MB/s/channel, max for combined channels is the PCI limit of 133MB/s. If you put one of those drives each on two channels, you would have a killer settup.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Napoleon · Sep 8, 2002

Ncogneto, this is getting a bit off-topic, but I think you've got a point about the BB/JB 2MB/8MB cache. Maybe not a valid one, but point is a point. :lol:

Anyway, IMO there is a golden opportunity to settle this one for good. Let's assume that the BB and JB models are identical except for the cache size (WD hasn't tuned JB's caching algorithms for 8MB cache or anything like that). Should be fairly straightforward to eliminate all other variables by using identical disk images and benchmark runs for both of the drives. Is there something like that already out there, anyone?

In any case, I think I'll drop an E-mail to some THG eds and ask them to check if they find anything newsworthy about the 8MB hype.

What do you mean, "don't touch that heatsink"? Step aside and let me show you howWAAAAH!!

Ncogneto · Sep 9, 2002

The problem is that the BB and JB models are not identical. The JB has a higher disk density then the bb....this is where the majority of the performance increase is comeing from.......not the extra cache. An apples to apples comparison cannot be done.

You can however make such comparisons on other drives. I have two different types of Fc-al (SCSI) drives which I base my opinions on. The seagate ST336605fc ( 4 meg ) vs the ST336605fcv ( 16 meg ). Unlike the comparison between the BB and JB these drives are identical with the exception of the extra cache and the firmware.

Actuall I may be wrong here I think they do have identical disk density. It would be interesting to have a look into the firmware however. Could the BB be broguth up to near JB levels with the same firmware but only addressing 2 meg of cache? Or are there other mechanical differences we are unaware of?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!Edited by ncogneto on 09/08/02 07:41 PM.

dstell · Sep 9, 2002

This is a difficult question for me to answer beyond my own personal testing. Patrick did the review of the Western Digital "JB" products in the following article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q1/020305/index.html

I have to agree with is conclusions in the article, the drive is an excellent buy and I too highly recommend it.

My experience with the drives is perhaps a little more extensive than Patrick's as I have two of the 80GB "JB" series drives in my workstation that I use every day here in my lab. From my experience with the drives, they seem to excel in areas like Photoshop or video editing. (Anytime that I am working with very large files!)

The over all performance of the drive is quite good and I have been impressed with the technology behind the drives.

As for the cache, it seems to me from my discussions with Western Digital that the idea they have a new advanced highly optimized cache strategy that improves performance might be a little more marketing hype than anything else. It is obvious to me that in situations where you are dealing with large files there is an improvement in performance, but in normal every day use the performance gap isn't perhaps as large as WDC would like us to believe.

A few weeks back I saw 4 of the 100GB JB series drives in a RAID 5 configuration on an Adaptec 2400A controller and I have to admit that for the data base application server that this systems was configured for the performance improvement was very good. Again, these folks were using the drives in a configuration that was dealing with a lot of large data base file what were storing pictures, so perhaps this was a good application and I further liked the performance of the Adaptec 2400A controller as well. It is a very good option for those who want RAID 5, but don't want SCSI.

The bottom line is in my opinion, Yes, it is a better drive in many situations, but depending on the use of the unit will dictate the over all performance improvement and while it might not be as large as some might like, anything that improves the performance of the hard drive, I am all for. With the "JB" series drive being priced as reasonable as they are here in the states, if you are going to go IDE there is no reason why you should not consider the "JB" series drives even if the performance gain isn't all that much.

Better than SCSI for server applications? - I really find that hard to beleive that a good Compaq array could not beat the snot out of the "JB"s in a simular situation, but cost the "JB" drives should give you more storage for less money. Depends on the application as to what is important to you.

BTW - I saw some one suggest that you can pick up the SCSI drives cheap on Ebay, and I too want echo that, but what you have to watch for is that they are not OEM drives that are pulls, because in those cases many time the drive maker has sold the warranty for the drive to the OEM and if the drive should fail you are not going to be able to RMA them back to the drive maker. I saw this with some Seagate drives that came via Compaq and Seagate refused to honor the warranty on them and Compaq said that they were sold with an Array and if he could not prove where they were purchased, Compaq was not going to replace the drive either. Let the buyer beware!

Ncogneto · Sep 9, 2002

dstell

I would like to clarify something. I never stated the WD JB was not a good drive. Quite the contrary, I ageed it was. What concerns me is the fact that it is almost always, as I stated before; "the WD JB with 8 meg cache". While not outright saying this, it implys that the cache is the sole and or main reason for the improvement versus the BB drive. Here is where I take issue. There are other factors at play other than just additional cache. Due to the great success of the JB soon we will see other drives on the market that also offer additional cache. If there going to give it away great. However this is seldom the case (if ever). It just leads to the fact that public perception will be that more cache = much greater performance. Making it worth the premium. I fear this perception, if unchecked, will soon lead to exploitation. There are apllications that will benefit, yes, such as A/V ( which the drive was originally intented). But most applications will see little if no improvement by merly adding extra drive cache ( all other things being equal). I see you made a reference to large files... I would like, if you may, clarify that a bit farther... How large is a large file?

BTW - I saw some one suggest that you can pick up the SCSI drives cheap on Ebay, and I too want echo that, but what you have to watch for is that they are not OEM drives that are pulls, because in those cases many time the drive maker has sold the warranty for the drive to the OEM and if the drive should fail you are not going to be able to RMA them back to the drive maker. I saw this with some Seagate drives that came via Compaq and Seagate refused to honor the warranty on them and Compaq said that they were sold with an Array and if he could not prove where they were purchased, Compaq was not going to replace the drive either. Let the buyer beware!

That was me and I agree in part. Better put, make sure you research who you are buying the drive from if using ebay, and pay carefull attention to his ratings. Pay carefull attention to feedback in which the buyer had a problem and if it was resolved. These are the signs of a good seller. Yes many drives are OEM pulls, however this doesn't make them not worthy of purchase but should play into your decision of how much to pay. Much like buying an OEM CPU little or no warranty = reduced price. And as maxtor has just announced they are cutting there warranty to 1 year and my guess is others will follow this becomes slighlty less relevant.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!Edited by ncogneto on 09/08/02 07:35 PM.

Ncogneto · Sep 9, 2002

Now, to get back on topic your best solution might be none of the above. First, I will have to admit that I am not familuar with togethersoft. Is it highly I/O intensive? What kind of access patterns does it generally generate? Have you thought about a real good 10 - 15k Scsi drive in the 18-36 gig range for your OS with a JB as a storage device? Why do you feel the need to RAID 2 SCSI drives?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!Edited by ncogneto on 09/08/02 07:42 PM.

Is this SCSI better than IDE?

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