Mainly price is what discouraged the home market. But that price does buy you rock solid hardware with as long as five-year warranties (which has been around for a long time), and generally superior technology in all aspects.
SCSI never took off because it faced the chicken/egg problem. The controllers were expensive to impliment because they weren't in mass production and they couldn't get into mass production because they were too expensive. IDE and it's predecessors were cheaper because they were already in mass production even though there were more controllers involved (one on every disk instead of one per array). Because of the chicken/egg problem SCSI remained relegated to the server market and the early mac's. Even today it still sufferes the problem of not enough production to lower control costs to a reasonable level.
If there is $100 desktop board with SCSI who else is going to buy a $600 server board with SCSI?
Err, SCSI drives spin at 10,000~15,000 rpm. You need a fair amount of high quality and reliable components to allow those speeds when compared to the 7,200 rpm of regular drives. This is where some expense comes in. SCSI drives are also designed to run 24/7, so need a lot of reliability, so AFAIK they are made with higher quality parts than desktop drives (see also the requirements for higher spindle speed).
They may also (IIRC) use only part of the platter (the fastest parts) to obtain low seek times and faster rotational speeds, meaning more expense for capacity as a lot of capacity is wasted.
I don't know about #'s of heads etc, but I would assume that might come into it as well (and obviously they need to be of the same high quality).
So apart from them needing to be expensive, because they require higher quality parts, making more noise due to higher speeds, and running hotter also due to higher speeds, I don't personally know why they haven't been adopted into wide general desktop use.
I used to work IT and SCSI is really outdated now. It's expensive and Serial ATA is just better.
aircooled
Lifer
- Oct 10, 2000
- 15,965
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It never took over because it never needed to. Modern 7200rpm drives are fast enough for the average user. Plus your SCSI server may be fast once booted, but the boot time is slower, home users want fast boots. (I'm using server boot times for comparison, so may not be a good comparison).
mugs
Lifer
- Apr 29, 2003
- 48,920
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I think they're so expensive because they're built to higher standards than IDE drives - that's why they're more reliable. It's more expensive to build them that way. It never caught on, because IDE is good enough for most people.
Macs used to ALL come with internal SCSI drives standard, and the standard external interface was also SCSI. But they abandoned that for IDE and USB, because it wasn't necessary and it was driving the prices up needlessly.
Macs used to ALL come with internal SCSI drives standard, and the standard external interface was also SCSI. But they abandoned that for IDE and USB, because it wasn't necessary and it was driving the prices up needlessly.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
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Many here know nothing of SCSI other than the stereotype LOUD/HOT/10K+
There are 7200rpm SCSI...there are quiet and cool scsi drives.
However, for an enterprise you want fast. Fast usually = hot and loud.
We use U320 15k 36.4-146 MB drives in our servers. I use scsi at home for my optical and flash memory readers, but ATA for my harddrives.
SCSI has an advantage of handling concurrent requests the best (although SATA is catching up esp with command queueing)...
There are SATA servers out there now. These work very well at a cheaper cost for small businesses.
Our 146GB SCSI 15k drives come in at about $900 a pop. We usually buy them in multiples. You can get a fast SATA 300GB drive for less than a fifth of that.
There are 7200rpm SCSI...there are quiet and cool scsi drives.
However, for an enterprise you want fast. Fast usually = hot and loud.
We use U320 15k 36.4-146 MB drives in our servers. I use scsi at home for my optical and flash memory readers, but ATA for my harddrives.
SCSI has an advantage of handling concurrent requests the best (although SATA is catching up esp with command queueing)...
There are SATA servers out there now. These work very well at a cheaper cost for small businesses.
Our 146GB SCSI 15k drives come in at about $900 a pop. We usually buy them in multiples. You can get a fast SATA 300GB drive for less than a fifth of that.
BurnItDwn
Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
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- 1,836
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Why did ECC Ram never take off on the home market?
Why is SMP somewhat of a rarity for Desktop Computers?
The answer is easy, There is no need for SCSI on the home desktop computer.
Also, SCSI has more than "took over" on the Server market. It's been dominating servers since before IDE came about.
SCSI is more expensive, it will always be more expensive then IDE as it requires a seperate controller that IDE doesn't require. SCSI drives are also built tougher, (one of the reasons they usually last longer.) Build quality + higher cost of parts means the drives cost more, no matter how much volume they make, SCSI drives will always cost more then SATA and PATA drives.
People have already stated pretty much all of the reasons, but I'm gonna go over them again. SCSI is expensive, loud, pain to set up (lots more jumpers then IDE), and basicly designed for server use. IDE is cheaper, quieter, and basicly designd for home desktop use.
Originally posted by: C6FT7
Hence used.
heh, you beat me to it.
geckojohn - SCSI completely and totally owns the storage space in IT.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
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Jumpers? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...
Even the basic HP DL360-380 servers do not use any kind of jumpers...you can pop in hot swapable SCSI drives and configure them directly from a browser-based GUI.
SCSI is easy, really. Just the price factor makes it the stupid choice for single user type systems...once you get past 10 or so users on a single server...SCSI's added performance becomes an advantage.
all the 68 pin scsi drives i've ever configured all had jumpers. you could use the jumpers to assign drive numbers. mb i was doing it needlessly but i couldn't get them configured raid until i configured the jumpers.
That only works if you're using a scsi backplane (which 95+% of servers use. if you are tying the drives directly to the controller via a standard cable you have to jumper each device.
edit: and I'm amazed at the non-sense some these posts have in this thread. :Q
Current scsi drives typically run hotter, duh, current drives typically spin the drive faster and have more effecient drive head actuators (the temp difference is not enough to worry about as they are designed to handle this temp). scsi drives are ofthen more dependable, vastly more R&D goes into scsi drives stability and longivity (one reason they are more expensive). SCSI drives can be louder than eide/sata drives, but then again I've heard much louder maxtor and fujitsu drives than our seagate baracuda drives.
ata drives (eide and sata) don't have as much testing, and are designed for an average user who's requirements for uptime and reliability aren't as demanding as enterprise class systems. current generation sata3 (300Mb w/ncq) stand to have the possibilty of mid-range class drives for slightly higher reliability and speed (10k drives like the WD raptor will soon be more common for this need, typical uses will likely be NAS storage devices and mid end workstations_
All in all it's cost of research and developement that determined the effectiveness and seperation of the two markets. and unless scsi makes another leap past the latest fibre-channel development it's possible sata drives could become more predominant in the server/workstation market.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
That only works if you're using a scsi backplane (which 95+% of servers use. if you are tying the drives directly to the controller via a standard cable you have to jumper each device.
Exactly, but even via a desktop type setup with jumpers...it's about as hard as having to use three jumpers (4, 2, 1) to set values for the drive. My system has a bit more SCSI components than the average (scanner, 4 opticals, 2 flash readers)...many external devices have a push-button setup for the SCSI ID, no jumpers needed.
The hardest thing I have found to deal with with non-LVD setups is cable length.
Captante
Lifer
- Oct 20, 2003
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Surprised this hasn't been mentioned but SCSI drives, even the 15k models are so optimized for server use that they perform slower the most decent 7200 rpm PATA & SATA drives... I recall a test on AT from awhile back that came to that conclusion although I'm too lazy to post a link.
The reason SCSI never got optimized for desktop use is a better question... my guess would be the higher cost.
The reason SCSI never got optimized for desktop use is a better question... my guess would be the higher cost.
BurnItDwn
Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 26,322
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I'm not saying "OMG SCSI IS TOO HARD TO SET UP" I'm just saying that that could be one of the reasons why it's not as populer as IDE on desktop PCs. I've run SCSI and SCSI Raid arrays at home, and I've never had any major issues (aside from priceerformance/capacity ratio.)
erformance/capacity ratio.)HHEEEEEEYYYYYYLLLLOOOOO???? CAAAAANNNNN YOOOOUUU HEEEEEEEEAAARRRRR MEEEEEEE OVVVVVER THEERRRRE BY YOUR COMMMPUTER?
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