SCSI Vs. IDE: Features
| Header Cell - Column 0 | UltraATA/100 | Ultra160-SCSI |
|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 100 MB/s | 160 MB/s |
| max. Devices per Channel | 2 | 15 |
| Configuration | Easy (Master/Slave) | Medium (IDs have to be assigned) |
| CPU Load | Low with Bus master DMA drivers | Low |
| Devices | Hard Drives, CD/DVD ROM, CD Writers, several removable drives, streamers | Hard Drives, CD/DVD ROM, CD Writers, several removable drives, streamers, scanners, ... |
| Location | Inside the case | Inside the case or external |
For more information about this topic, please read SCSI Lives! Quantum Atlas 10K II - Ultra160-SCSI .
SCSI Vs. IDE: RAID
RAID (Redundant Array Of Independent Disk Drives) used to be a domain of SCSI, but this has changed significantly lately. The disadvantage of SCSI is the clearly higher price for drives, cables and controllers. Some years ago, several companies (Promise, AMI and others) started to develop RAID controller chips for IDE drives. Today there are several products on the market, giving you the option to create fast, cheap and safe drive arrays with IDE hard disks. Due to the architecture of IDE (2 ports for 2 drives each), most IDE controllers are limited to a maximum of 4 drives (2 channels). Promise is offering a RAID-5 controller which is equipped with six IDE channels, all other solutions are limited to RAID levels 0, 1 and 0+1 (striping, mirroring and a combination of both). The advances in the area of IDE RAID are only interesting for workstations and smaller servers however. Large arrays can still only be realized and properly managed using SCSI hardware (Adaptec, DPT, Mylex and Tekram are some of the manufacturers).
In March 2000, Tom took a close look at the Promise FastTrak 66 IDE RAID controller and also made several benchmark runs. If you are interested in RAID configurations, I recommend the article Fast and Inexpensive - Promise's FastTrak66 IDE RAID-Controller .
