Asus P4C800-E and SCSI 160

[Stiganator]

I was wondering if it I would see an improvement in performance if I got a controller card and ran some scsi drives in RAID 0, or would the controller card be limited by the PCI bus.

So pretty much RAID 0 with some 3 Ultra SCSI 160 Wide 10K 2MB buffer drives OR

RAID 0 with 2 WD Raptor 10K SATA drives with 8MB buffer

This would be on the Asus P4C800-E with oc 2.4C@ 3.2 with HyperX PC 3500 2-3-3-7

Any input appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

What 10k SCSI drives are we talking about here... fast recent-model ones? If so, their peak sustained throughput in RAID0 could hit the wall on a 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus under ideal circumstances, yeah. I saw a test with two Cheetah 15k.3's in RAID0 on a single-channel Adaptec 29320-R (basic RAID0) and they were hitting around 140MB/second on a 64-bit PCI bus if I recall correctly. A 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus is going to top out around 120MB/sec in actual usage.

In theory the Intel SATA controller in the ICHR5 southbridge would be clear of that PCI bottleneck. I have to wonder if you're going to notice the difference, though... what are you needing this speed for, and what improvements are you going to expect from it? Remember, sustained throughput isn't the only measure of drive performance any more than straight-line speed is the only measure of a Grand Prix car's performance. They aren't always flat-out sprinting.

 

[Stiganator]

The SCSI in question are either: Atlas IV, Atlas 10K, 10K II, 10K III or Atlas V drives, I don't know which to get but they can be had for cheap so I will probably get 2 or three.
I do CAD and 3D Animation as well as general office and gaming. Pretty much anything you use a computer for.

Plus I hear SCSI use less CPU overhead that ATA??? True for SATA??? and they have faster access times, are more durable and have more accurate actuators and such.