looking for a quite cpu cooler (P4)

[Marshmallowman]

Yup I would i think as long as you had reasonable air flow insulating the drives from the case should be good.

[chaoliang]

The Smart Drive HDD case must be mountet into a 5,25' rack. There is normally no case fan. Might it be a problem?

[chaoliang]

Are there still real advantages of using SCSI technique nowadays? Does anyone else here use SCSI?
What HDDs do you have (SATA, ATA ...)?
My mb has only two SATA ports. That can be scarce.

[VJ]

Originally posted by chaoliang
Are there still real advantages of using SCSI technique nowadays? Does anyone else here use SCSI?

Well, here is my take on it (I'm a hardcore SCSI user ). Advantages (of 10K and up models):

• performance (esp. seek times but also data transfer rates)
• disks can be accessed in parallel (some IDE/SATA boards, mostly VIA, have a bottleneck when both controllers are used - we measured it after a RAID0 system didn't perform well compared to another similar configuration )
• number of disks that can be connected (but a even U320 controller can be maxed out before you reach the maximum number of devices on the bus)
• hardware mapping of bad blocks (at least, on my Seagate; OS never even sees bad blocks)
• 5-warranty is common
• less CPU usage (compared to IDE, difference is far less with SATA)
• the IDE controller becomes dedicated to the CD/DVD drives (less of a problem nowadays, combining hdd and cd devices in ye ol' days often gave issues)

Disadvantages:

• price
• noise
• price
• heat (case becomes important, allthough faster IDE/SATA drives might have this issue too)
• have I mentioned price?

I started with SCSI some 5-6 years ago, when the performance gained just by upgrading from IDE to SCSI on my system (PII-450 back then) was huge. I doubt the difference is that big today though.
So I honestly don't know if the cost nowadays justifies the difference in performance.

What HDDs do you have (SATA, ATA ...)?
My mb has only two SATA ports. That can be scarce. [/B]

Seagate Cheetah 10K.6 (U320)
IBM/Hitachi UltraStar 36lzx (U160)
Lacie D2 Extreme (Firewire 800)


Jörg

[UtwigMU]

Well WD Raptor is competitive for single user performance with 10 and even 15k SCSI drives.

Another problem is that in PII days SCSI drives were 36GB compared to 10-20GB for IDE drives, while today's SCSI drives have huge cost per GB.

Otherwise, hardcore SCSI users seem still to swear by performance difference.

IMO if you already have a U160 card (U2W will not be maxed with single drive) and drives, consider getting a 36GB 10k or 15k boot drive and use IDE drives for storage.

[KeiFront]

Still using SCSI mainly for my os'es (2 36GB SCSI disks). SCSI has a greater flexibility than IDE and a greater reliability. The performance is about the same (altough SCSI has lower seek times).
I only use my IDE-drives as data storage. IDE is just very cheap compared to SCSI. Price is the only advantage normal IDE has compared to SCSI, SATAII comes close to SCSI but still your limited to max 4 devices and NCQ isn't up to par yet with SCSI NCQ (all the test I've seen show high CPU-usage when SATAII NCQ is enabled).

When I switch to a newer mainbord with SATAII I'll probably will still use SCSI.

[chaoliang]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
IMO if you already have a U160 card (U2W will not be maxed with single drive) and drives, consider getting a 36GB 10k or 15k boot drive and use IDE drives for storage.

I only have a Adaptec 2940UW controller and a Baracuda 18GB (7200 rpm, as boot drive), plus one CD ROM and one CDW. I stopped to invest more in the SCSI system because it's simply too expensive. But the things I already have are still quite good for my need - except the NOISE .

[VJ]

I'm in the same situation as Keifront... (but I use FW800 as data storage disk).

40 MB/s will be easily maxed out by 10K rpm drives, so moving to a more up to date SCSI system will yield quite a cost...


Jörg

[UtwigMU]

100 Euros or less if you score a good deal: Adaptec 29160 used, you can also get U160 LSI controllers for 75 Euros or so new
150-200 Euros: 10k 36GB boot drive or
300-400 Euros: 15k 36GB boot drive

If you get a SCSI card that doesn't handle CD-ROMs (narrow 50-pin fast or ultra stuff) get something like Adaptec 2904PCI (fast) or 2940 (ultra narrow) used or new for 20-50 Euros.

So a basic SCSI setup could be had for ~250 Euros

On the other hand:

80 Euros 4-channel Promise SATA controller (no RAID) (if your board doesn't have one)
200 Euros WD Raptor 74GB (36GB uses older technology and is slower)

SATA setup: 200 (280) Euros

[chaoliang]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
80 Euros 4-channel Promise SATA controller (no RAID) (if your board doesn't have one)

My MB has only two SATA ports (the other two are only for Promise Raid, as far as I understood). Does that mean that an extra controller can give me the possibility to attach more SATA drives?

A major problem of SCSI at home is its noise. I don't need so much performance, but the intelligent engeniering and the superb flexibility. A 7200 rpm drive as quiet as the Samsung ATA drives is a dream for me. I don't really understand why they build SCSI drives with more rpm instead of building quieter ones with better performance and the same rpm!

[UtwigMU]

I'd recommend Seagate, I have 160GB 7200 drive on other desk (caseless, install of windows...) and I can barely hear it seeking when i'm 30 cm away and they have 5-year warranty.

Extra controllers:
2 port ones are cheap (25-30 Euros), while 4-port ones are more expensive - 80 for Promise here. Get Silicon Image if you can as they support optical SATA drives.

[VJ]

Originally posted by chaoliang
I don't really understand why they build SCSI drives with more rpm instead of building quieter ones with better performance and the same rpm!

The target market for SCSI is servers. Some years ago, workstations also used it but now it already has become an option. Even entry level servers don't come standard with SCSI.
But for the targetted market, performance is key: a server will be put in some server room, where its noise won't bother anyone.
(Ever heard an HP Itanium? Another department here has one, and it is genuinly loud: the entire front and rear of the case consists of fans, and there are fans inside the casing as well )


Jörg