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Anyone running all SCSI? Is it worth it?

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gspyder..

u can't compare a 8xscsi burner to a 12xide burner...

that's like comparing a manual transmission honda civic to an automatic nissan 300zx...

if you compared the 8xscsi to a 8xIDE...then ur argument might be valid...

if you compare the 12xscsi plextor to the 12xide plextor, u'll notice the differences...

anyhoo..

yes, scsi is expensive...but it's well worth the moola..if you got it...

for general use, go with ide...

if you wanna burn a cd, play quake or UT or DVD movies in a window, play mp3s in the background, have instant messages or icqs pop up, download a bitch of a demo, and read anandtech reviews at the same time...you'd better go with scsi 😀 don't think it can't be done bc I'm doing it right now....it doesn't mean that I have 1 eye on UT and 1 on the reviews.. but I can switch between them with ease and still have my comp do the other stuff in the background 😀 u like? I like...🙂 (note, be prepared to surrender some major moola for the scsi devices and a 19"+ monitor...most of the apps can run minimized, but the game or movie, and the webpage should atleast split the screen...)

good luck with your decision...
 
NFS4, on my ALL-SCSI PIII450 system, UT takes slightly longer to load than netscape does.

I'm a poor college student but I'm addicted to SCSI, it's definitely worth it. 🙂
 
SCSI is fine, and is not expensive for devices such as DVD, CD-ROM and CDRW. You can connect up to 7 devices on one cable, and you can have your devices external, in case you want portability. No need to worry about bus mastering, or DMA - it's all automatically enabled. SCSI is exceedingly well supported by all OSs, so no dodgy drivers. If you're loading your system with drives, and you want it to work first time, with no fuss, then SCSI will do what you want.

Apart from IEEE 1394, which is about as easy to find as hen's teeth, SCSI is the only high performance external peripheral interface. If you want an external CD recorder then SCSI is the only option if you want to burn faster than 4x.

Current SCSI HDDs while tremendously fast, are generally too expensive for simple storage, so I can't recommend them for your typical hobbyist - although an older slower model in an external box, makes an excellent backup device.

I currently have my CD-ROM and RW drives on SCSI - and they're fantastic. Never a coaster that wasn't either my fault or due to Adaptec's buggy software. As I bought a 2nd hand Ultra (narrow) SCSI adapter,which cost £20, and my SCSI recorder was the same price as the IDE one. This was not an expensive option.
 
Have particpated in many threads like this - mostly at the storagereview bss, where they're fanatical about storage & hard drive perf.

Everybody knows scsi's (true) multi-tasking/multi-threading is better for successful burning - don't think anyone debates that. SCSI burners are ball-park same price as IDE. The controller is the only variable there.

Hard drives are diff story, cuz they're significantly more expensive than IDE. *But* u don't need a monster SCSI drive - you only need a *small* (9GB), fast (10Krpm) drive to run ur OS, apps, & swap. That's where u'll notice the biggest improvement.

Don't need SCSI to store MP3s, back-up files, downloads, etc. You don't want to run "all-SCSI". That would be wasting ur money. Keep ur IDE drives for basic storage needs (I have 3).

When I upgraded from 7200rpm IDE (IBM) to 10Krpm LVD SCSI (also IBM), it was a 'wow' thing - like my first V2 or getting Cable modem. The key is in ACCESS TIMES. My IBM 18LZX (not even newest) has 4.9ms access. Newest Cheetah X15 specs at 3.9ms (!). Add to that true multi-tasking, & you're in a whole different world.

What are access time specs for current gen IDE drives? Double that? Not even close. I read that 1ms is an eternity when it comes to access times. Given that, IDE drives are several eternities slower than SCSI drives. After u run ur OS, apps & swap from a SCSI drive, that's what it will feel like if u ever try to go back to IDE. 😀

You'll never know what I'm talking about until u see how much more responsive ur system is w/ one installed.

You can get a 10Krpm U160 (IBM 36LZX) drive for little more than $229 - plenty of space to run W98/W2K/Linux, all apps (even a few games), & swap file. See here:

http://www.hypermicro.com/store/hard_drives.htm

It's been my experience that ppl who dis SCSI have never actually ran a SCSI system. Ppl who have, tend to have the opinion that, "whereas I once was blind, now I see."

If ur anything like me, you'll be impressed - prolly say 'Wow.' 🙂

See here for the mother-of-all SCSI vs IDE threads:

http://www.storagereview.com/welcome.pl/http://www.storagereview.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000909.html

Have the Tekram U2W adapter ($130) w/ Plextor combo (8X CDR + UW reader) and a few IBM 10Krpm LVD drives (no U160).
 
That'd be cool. I actuallty did the opposite - got the burner 1st (my first ever, didn't have burner at the time). Got a card I could grow into (paid $165 over a year ago). Got UltraWide reader shortly thereafter,& HDD about 4-5 months later (when IBM released 10Krpm). If ur gonna do the HDD first, look at the X15. 3.9ms access has to be heaven. If money is big issue, u shouldn't even be looking at SCSI HDDs.

You want a card that can run non-LVD devices w/out affecting LVD/U160 bus.

Tekram cards that do this are: U2W, U3W for sure.

Get retail box w/ all cables & terminators, cuz that stuff can co$t if bought separately.

Some Adaptec boxes don't come w/ cables & terms. Read carefully. I can vouch for Tekram (even tho their sppt sux).
 
Money is not really an issue, because I buy quality. I don't buy sh!t 😀 I just want to make sure that my money is going to be well spent with SCSI.

OTOH, if I go dual with an AMD760MP board, that my liven up an IDE system a bit and be cheaper in the process.
 
Here's a point to add:

Multiple SCSI channels can share 1 IRQ. At one time, I had my Initio dual channel UW SCSI card sharing 1 IRQ with another Symbios UW SCSI card. That's 3 different SCSI channeld & I can connect up to 45 SCSI device with that.

Just be warned, many SCSI hard drives run much louder and hotter that typical IDE HHD even at the same speed.

 
SCSI truely shines in this situation:

Youre burning a CD on the fly from another CD. Both drives are on the same channel. The channel has 20MB/s of bandwidth, both devices can operate at the same time. But with IDE you maybe have 33MB/s but you can only have one of the two drives transfering at a time, then there is a switch. If you have a 12X burner without burnproof ans with a 4MB buffer, that means you have 2.2 seconds of time for it to switch back and forth before the buffer under-runs. That isn't acceptable. So now lets put them on separate IDE channels, okay it works fine now, but guess what, you dare do anything that touches that hard drive on one of the channels and youre coastered.

SCSI up to 15 devices simultaneous (not counting controller), 7 on one channel 8 on the other. All of them doing what they want. Yeah maybe you will fill the bus up but all will continue to operate. IDE you have two channels, and so that means only two devices maximum running at a time. So if you want to rip MP3's you can't watch a DVD movie, and defrag a hard drive.

With my combo SCSI/IDE system, one of two hard drives is IDE and on its own channel by itself, and my DVD is on the other IDE channel. I can defrag the IDE hard drive, rip MP3's to a CDR on the fly (packetCD), and watch a DVD movie. All the while surfing the web. Try that with any IDE system and you will have something quit. Also thats in windowsME.
 
What the hell kind of responses were you expecting in the first place? "I bought SCSI and no way is it worth coughing up all that extra money for!" Yeah right! If they paid 10 times as much as IDE they would still say "It's well worth the extra money!" WTF else are they going to say?

Maybe you can answer your own question by answering this. Is a "dual with an AMD760MP board" worth the extra money? If you answer yes to that, then SCSI is a no brainer. Of course, some people make these decisions BEFORE they drop tons of money on a "hard drive, DVD, CDRW, etc."
 


<< What the hell kind of responses were you expecting in the first place? &quot;I bought SCSI and no way is it worth coughing up all that extra money for!&quot; Yeah right! If they paid 10 times as much as IDE they would still say &quot;It's well worth the extra money!&quot; WTF else are they going to say? >>


WTH are you talking about? I asked people's opinion on their SCSI systems and that's what I have gotten. I am contemplating going the SCSI route and these people are providing tons of info for me. I haven't been negative to them or them to me.

So what is the point of your bashing? :|
 
That's not the point. Who's to say that a person went all SCSI and then wasn't happy with the peformance/dollar ratio. It's not impossible for someone to not be happy with SCSI.

That's just like someone saying that they spent $500 on a GeForce 2 GTS Ultra and don't at least have at least one thing to say against it (or if the extra FPS was worth the price difference of a regular GF2).

The fact of the matter is, I started this thread to get some info, and in return of have gotten a WHOLE lot
 
Uh, I think that IS the point. &quot;Anyone running all SCSI? Is it worth it?&quot; What percentage of people did you expect to say it isn't worth it? Sheesh...
 


<< Uh, I think that IS the point. &quot;Anyone running all SCSI? Is it worth it?&quot; What percentage of people did you expect to say it isn't worth it? Sheesh... >>


It was stated as is it worth it for me to upgrade from my IDE system when I have all of these existing IDE periphials.

But as I said, the main point of this thread was to get opinions on SCSI and I got that so anything else is water under the bridge for me.
 
What about MoBo's with SCSI built in? How much more are one of those things? Are they mosly like highend server boards?
 
Unless the board is going in a server then, I would highly recommend against built in SCSI on mothers, due to the fact when you upgrade your motherboard you loose your scsi.

I changed over a year ago to all scsi and have loved it ever since. If you can afford 10K or 15K drives get them, as they are much faster.
 
Yea.. But you can always buy a SCSI card later..
Its just that I think my next system it gonna be pure pimpage 🙂))
Like A Dual XEON, 512MB RAM, NV15-20.. Blah Blah Blah.

I dont know much about MB's, anyone have some good links for me? Manufacturers, reviews... Sorry to go O/T.
 
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