How much should I save up for this SCSI setup?

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Well, looking ahead in time I plan to get a new hard drive around Christmas. Hopefully that is when I will have left IDE drives, for myself at least. I'm going to be looking for a 15,000RPM drive, SCSI platform, and probably 36GB since 18GB won't be enough then and 73GB is too expensive. At the time, will that be a better choice or a Raid 0 setup of two Raptors?

Either way, I can find SCSI 15,000RPM drives with about 36GB of space for around $300 or so at various online stores. I was looking at SCSI controllers to go along with it and I see that some are as low as $30 while there some up in the hundreds. I'm wondering what the difference will be between those controllers, I won't be looking for Raid on this either.

Many of the controllers say that they are PCI 64bit compatible or something, does that mean it won't work in a standard PCI slot?

Also, is there any guide to SCSI drives I can read to get a better understanding of how they work?

 

[Lonyo]

What do you want to do with it?
RAID-0 Raptors would certainly be quite fast, and probably enough for the average user.

 

[dexvx]

64bit or even some PCI-X controllers will work in standard PCI slots. Take note that you cannot take full advantage of the bandwidth offered.

you need a controller that is at least U160 or above. Cheaper ones are UW (40MB/sec) U2W (80MB/sec) based, or made by companies other than Adaptec. It also varies to how many channels and connections are on the card. A good U160 card will have a LVD, SE, 50pin internal and external slot. Cheaper cards only have the LVD to cut costs. Also, if it is bundled with cables, it can be quite a bit more expensive, as a good LVD cable can cost a bit.

As for harddrive, 18GB is enough for an OS/games/apps drive (well for me at least). You have to keep note that first generation 15K rpm drives are quite a bit slower than newer 3rd generation ones.

 

[mechBgon]

The $42 LSI Logic U160 controller at Newegg might be a good controller to start with.

The benchmarks at StorageReview.com seem to point to the Fujitsu MAS-series drives as the current leader. The Cheetah 15k.3 and older Cheetah X15-36LP both use quiet-idling fluid-bearing motors, so if noise were a concern, you might want to go that direction. StorageReview.com is a good place to research drives, click the "Database" link up top, look at some benchmarks, then click through to the drive reviews for more details.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The $42 LSI Logic U160 controller at Newegg might be a good controller to start with.

The benchmarks at StorageReview.com seem to point to the Fujitsu MAS-series drives as the current leader. The Cheetah 15k.3 and older Cheetah X15-36LP both use quiet-idling fluid-bearing motors, so if noise were a concern, you might want to go that direction. StorageReview.com is a good place to research drives, click the "Database" link up top, look at some benchmarks, then click through to the drive reviews for more details.

Yeah, thats what I was actually doing before I posted this

How much would a decent SCSI controller cost though? I was thinking it would be in the $100 range but that $42 doesn't seem that bad either. Will that Cheetah you mentioned that use fluid bearing motors be much louder than an IDE drive? I don't want to hear a really loud spinning noise or a bunch of clicks all the time like with the older IDE hard drives for desktops...

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The $42 LSI Logic U160 controller at Newegg might be a good controller to start with.

The benchmarks at StorageReview.com seem to point to the Fujitsu MAS-series drives as the current leader. The Cheetah 15k.3 and older Cheetah X15-36LP both use quiet-idling fluid-bearing motors, so if noise were a concern, you might want to go that direction. StorageReview.com is a good place to research drives, click the "Database" link up top, look at some benchmarks, then click through to the drive reviews for more details.

Yeah, thats what I was actually doing before I posted this

How much would a decent SCSI controller cost though? I was thinking it would be in the $100 range but that $42 doesn't seem that bad either. Will that Cheetah you mentioned that use fluid bearing motors be much louder than an IDE drive? I don't want to hear a really loud spinning noise or a bunch of clicks all the time like with the older IDE hard drives for desktops...

If you don't want to hear seeks, you could put the drive in an enclosure on the other end of a 30-meter SCSI cable and put the enclosure in the basement. My X15-36LP is about as loud as the fan on my Radeon 7500 at idle, but you can hear it seek. Doesn't bother me a bit, since it is actually getting something done with all that noise, instead of thrashing ineffectually.

I've searched for complaints about the LSI U160 controller on the SR forums, and it doesn't seem to be getting bad remarks there, so I'd guess it's adequate for hosting one or two drives. Its peak throughput is higher than your PCI bus can take, anyway.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Are you serious about the 30meter cable thing? Thats 90 ft! Is that possible? I never though it was possible, atleast on IDE drives, because the signal would not be strong enough. Is SCSI's signal powerful enough to go that far? Also, how much did you spend for that cable?

 

[mechBgon]

Ooops, I was thinking of the 10m one I saw at Adaptec's site. The maximum would actually be 12 meters... I was thinking 30m when I should've said ~30 feet. I don't have one of these cables, don't want one either... seek noise on a SCSI drive is like exhaust note on a Dodge Viper... it belongs.

Side note: the WD360GD (Raptor) uses ball bearings and has been reported to make a somewhat noticable idle noise. If it follows the trend of the WD JB series, some of them will probably be developing a nasty "zing!" idle noise as time goes by. I'd be going for the Cheetah 15k.3, and in fact I'm planning to get one in the next couple months since my workload is occasionally heavy enough to bog down my X15-36LP. With page files on both drives and with my server-type files segregated from my OS/apps, I should see improvement.