Hrmmmm....IDE RAID0 or SCSI ?

[Noriaki]

Right now I'm primarly using my computer for games, under Win 95OSR2 or 98SE. I'm also a programmer and do most of my programming on Linux on this machine. I'm going to buy a TV-Tuner/Digital Video recorder and want to use my HDD for that as well.

So anyways...right now I have a 7200rpm EIDE drive.

I want 3 things:
I want to add a CDRW, but I have 4 IDE devices I don't to remove.
I want to get my DVD Rom on it's own IDE channel so it can run in DMA mode (it's with a CDRom right now so it's stuck in PIO mode 4).
I would also like to improve the performance of my hard drive.


I see two major choices:
1)
Get a promise FastTrak66 and put my 7200rpm hard drive in a RAID with a 2nd new one, and my 17RPM 5400RPM (mp3 storage ) as a second "array" on that same controller.

And then my mobo's IDE controller can take my multitude of CD Drives.


option 2, Go SCSI:
Get a Tekram DC-390U3W (Ultra160) and say a Quantum Altas or something like that, get a Plextor 40x CDRom and 12x4 CDRW SCSI style, keep my 17GB EIDE for mp3 storage, and my DVD rom can have the other IDE channel.

Then I can toss my 9GB and IDE CDrom into the making of a 2nd machine...


Ok, so now I have 2 major questions.
1) Price and Performance. I suppose the SCSI solution will cost more, but which will perform better? Assuming a pair of 7200rpm IDE drives for the RAID, and a 7200rpm SCSI drive (I think the 10k RPMs are probably a tad to expensive for me) for option 2.
I don't mind expense if it's worth it...but I don't like throwing money away for no good reason.

2) Is option 1 even possible, can you put 3 drives on a RAID0 card, have 2 in a 2 drive RAID0 and the 3rd by itself?

2b) If I do the IDE RAID0 thing, will it take 1 IRQ or 2, because I only have 1 free...hmmm I know SCSI will only take one...


ahh so anyways...any comments or opinions or thoughts or anything else of that nature would be appreciated.

 

[KarlHungus]

How about the following:

Ditch the IDE CDROM and DVD. Pick up a cheap SCSI controller, perhaps a UW (40Mb/s). Then grab a SCSI CDRW and DVD drive. Keep your IDE HDs, just put move one so they are on separate channels.

Also, I'm not even sure 2 IDE controllers can (peacefully) exist in one computer.

 

[Noriaki]

not a bad idea actually....
any recommendations a Good UW SCSI controller ?

 

[BoberFett]

Karl

Any motherboard you buy today has 2 IDE controllers. Each can support 2 devices.

 

[KarlHungus]

Bober -

Gah! Sorry about that, I meant 4 IDE controllers! In other words I'm not sure 2 sets of 2 controllers can (peacefully) exist in one computer.


Noriaki -

I've got the Adaptec 2940UW which should suit your needs nicely, you should also look to see if there is a comparable Tekram controller.

 

[Aboroth]

Adaptec makes popular SCSI controllers, but charge through the roof for them mostly because they are popular. They make good stuff though and a lot of people buy them, especially companies, just because they have been making them for a while and have a good history, kind of like why 3COM sells their products for so much money. It costs us a lot of money because the businesses are willing to pay that much.

 

[BoberFett]

If you just wanted to run CD/DVD drives, you only need a SCSI2 controller. You can get one of those for $30.

Karl

I've seen you around here enough and figured maybe it was a typo. Just wanted to be sure.

 

[resinboy]

Tekram makes great scsi controllers. I have the equivalent of the (Adaptec)2940U, and paid $75.00 for it. Been running great for a year.

 

[Pariah]

The 7200RPM IDE RAID will outperform the single SCSI drive and at a lower cost per/MB. Even so, I think the suggestion to get a cheap a SCSI card and go SCSI on the optical drives is a better idea. It doesn't matter that you have a PIO4 drive on the same channel as your DVD, it should still be able to run DMA. Yes, you can run 3 drives in a RAID array. Tekram is definitely choice for most people who want SCSI.

 

[Noriaki]

Pariah, you can run a PIO4 device and a DMA33 device on the same IDE channel? I thought that the two devices on the channel had to be running in the same mode.

Yeah I'm pretty sure if I get a SCSI card it will be tekram. I saw a Tekram vs Adaptec @ Ultra160 a few days ago and hte cards were very close, but hte Tekram cost 2/3s...

Thanks for the suggestions people.

Does anyone know if a Promise FastTrak66 running with a 2 Drive RAID0 and a 3rd drive on it's own would use 1 IRQ or 2?

 

[Lvis]

I don't think there are drivers avaliable for linux with the promise raid card.

 

[arthurb1]

SCSI RAID 0 or 5 (ooh fault tolerance) if you have the means, otherwise, a singole 10k drive will be fast, and a single 15k will be faster an may even beat the IDE RAID.

 

[pdo]

The Fastrak alone would use 1 irq and the if you're using the IDE controller on the boards that would use additional irq. But I would definitely go with RAID-0 set-up plus SCSI cards for CDROM and BURNER. Check out my sig.

 

[downhiller80]

Noriaki - yes you can have a single drive running as an array on Fasttrak. Just set as "span" and only pick one drive.

Seb

 

[Lvis]

FAQ #77 http://www.promise.com/TrackManager/Scripts/Q_FAQS.asp?product=fasttrak