IDE RAID Vs. SCSI RAID

[Quitch]

I am putting together a home desktop, its main function will likely be gaming, though it will do other tasks besides this.

I had considered buying a SCSI RAID card, then hooking it up to two SCSI hard drives (along with a DVD drive) and using RAID 0. However, this is costly, and I wonder if it is really worth it.

1. What kind of performance difference is there, on a desktop, between SCSI and IDE? For I/O heavy machines I hear SCSI should make a big difference, but what with the advances in IDE and IDE drives, is there much difference for a desktop?

2. Since IDE will only give me two channels, will having the DVD and one HD on one cable have a noticable performance impact?

3. Would a seperate RAID card be worth the cost (assuming IDE here), as opposed to using integrated RAID on a motherboard? Assuming a HyperThread processor, will the RAID chip on the board chew up additional cycles, thus making it worth having a seperate card? I am confused as to the performance impact of using integrated RAID for RAID 0.

I would be looking to buy a board using the Intel 875P chipset.

Thanks for your help.

 

[sharkeeper]

I had considered buying a SCSI RAID card, then hooking it up to two SCSI hard drives (along with a DVD drive) and using RAID 0. However, this is costly, and I wonder if it is really worth it.

Ok, say you have the money for both. There are two cars on the lot. Porsche 911 Twin Turbo and Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. Which one would you pick?

Seriously SCSI RAID wins hands down! Purchase a dedicated RAID HBA and install ONLY hard disks on it! Use your IDE ports for optical drives and gigantic hard disks.

-DAK-

 

[vash]

SCSI vs IDE for RAID is all about price. If you cannot afford SCSI raid, then go IDE raid, its simple. If I were to go IDE RAID, I'd would, at least get 7200rpm drives and a caching controller.

vash

 

[mechBgon]

This might give you some insight: ClubOC does Cheetah 15k.3 RAID0 Note that this is with a controller running on a 64-bit 66MHz PCI bus... a 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus would be the limiting factor in a sustained-transfer-rate situation. The quick access times and track-to-track seeks of the 15k.3 would still be to its advantage even if it were hampered by a 32-bit PCI bus.

 

[sharkeeper]

That's a very confusing review I might add!

Looks great for STR whores, but that Adaptec HBA isn't much of a RAID controller. It's basically the equivalent of a Promise IDE card with U320 SCSI LVD interfaces. (Think ATTO UL3D!)

Yes for streaming, that's great but that setup is gonna suck for real i/o intensive things (and I'm not speaking server only) on the desktop. You cannot beat a real HW solution with a dedicated I/O processor and lots of battery backed up RAM. Would you put bias ply tyres on your 911? :Q

-DAK-

 

[mechBgon]

A true hardware RAID controller would certainly be da bomb, I'm not implying otherwise One of these perhaps!

 

[sharkeeper]

A true hardware RAID controller would certainly be da bomb, I'm not implying otherwise One of these perhaps!

Excellent choice! Three X15.3's on each channel and you've got a screamer! Of course that HBA lives most happy in a 64bit pci slot.

-DAK-

 

[Quitch]

I realise that SCSI RAID is better than IDE RAID, and that a seperate card is also better. My question is... is it worth the cost? Car A may be slightly faster than Car B, but you're not going to pay an additional million for a minor speed boost.

What sort of speed difference is a desktop PC looking at between SCSI and IDE, onboard and PCI card?

 

[thesix]

Answers based my *personal experience*:

1. Two SCSI RAID0 v.s. two IDE (ATA) RAID0 ?

You can hardly notice any difference between the two for gaming, so NOT worth the money.
( I assume you're going to use the near-latest technology on either side, i.e.
10K/15K RPM 4MB cache Ultra160/320 SCSI , or, 7200 RPM 8MB ATA133 . )

2. Since they share the same IDE bus, I think there will be a penalty.
With current MB, you have separate ATA channel (ports) for ATA disks, put CD/DVDROM on the traditional IDE channel.

3. Using integrated RAID controller makes more sense. Don't worry about CPU overhead.

What games are you going to play? I am not sure why so many gamers worry about disk performance.

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: thesix
What games are you going to play? I am not sure why so many gamers worry about disk performance.

You obviously don't play BF1942, or Unreal2.

In both of them, you are waiting while the levels load from HDD. Going from a single 7200rpm drive to a Raid 0 decreased the loading times of BF1942 levels by a great deal, down from about 35 seconds, down to about 20 seconds. Means that you spawn before some of the others, and get the good vehicles (such as the sub) and good points, before others do


IDE Raid 0 was good over a single 7200rpm drive, but I can only imagine a 15k3 Raid 0 would be even better!


Confused

 

[thesix]

BTW, I am using Adaptec 39160 card in my system, because I got
many Ultra2 and Ultra160 SCSI disks ( mostly 9GB 10RPM).

A single Ultra160 10K SCSI disk is slower than a single WD or Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB cache disk.
However, I get much better performance by distributing data (Windows, Programs/applications,
user data, tempory data, swap, etc.) to different 'slower' 9GB disks, comparing to put them on
a single ATA133 'faster' disk.

 

[thesix]

Confused, you're right, I am not a gamer. Shame on me

Sound likes sequential read performance is very important for BF1942 or Unreal2.

> but I can only imagine a 15k3 Raid 0 would be even better!

I don't have '15k3' disks at hand, but I can 'imagine' it won't be much faster, why?
Because RPM is mostly important for random read/write, we're talking about sequetial read, right?
Cache size and media-to-cache speed is more important here, which 15K/Ultra320 disks don't
have any advantage over current ATA133 disks.

However, going with SCSI means you can have more disks on a single I/O channel.
Now, at home, I can create a RAID-0 with 4 * 9GB 10K/Ultra160 disks, each 2 of them on
a separate channel of 39260.
I am pretty sure 4*9GB 10K/Ultra160 disks is much cheaper than 2*18GB 15K Ultra320 disks,
but more similar (if not better throughput)

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

with the speed of IDE drives nowadays, SCSI isn't not cost efficient for normal desktop/gaming use.
The only market the SCSI has a real need is in non-linear video/audio editing, and dataserving. Sure it's cool to say you have SCSI, but all you're doing is throwing money down the crapper. RAID 0 is not a true RAID anyways so stop fooling yourselves. There is no Redundancy in RAID 0.

 

[Blain]

Compromise and RAID up twin WD Raptors.

 

[sharkeeper]

Not a bad compromise but capacity is certainly a limit going that route.

Reliability of these units is also unknown. If I were going to take a gamble, I'd certainly go with SCSI.

-DAK-

 

[PaperclipGod]

Originally posted by: shuttleteam
Not a bad compromise but capacity is certainly a limit going that route.

Reliability of these units is also unknown. If I were going to take a gamble, I'd certainly go with SCSI.

-DAK-

Two raptors in raid 0 is 72 gigs of space... do you really need more? I've got 48 gigs of drive space on my computer, with tons to spare. I don't really understand how some of you guys "require" dual 80 gig drives. :/

 

[helpme]

Originally posted by: thesix


A single Ultra160 10K SCSI disk is slower than a single WD or Maxtor 7200RPM 8MB cache disk.
However, I get much better performance by distributing data (Windows, Programs/applications,
user data, tempory data, swap, etc.) to different 'slower' 9GB disks, comparing to put them on
a single ATA133 'faster' disk.

In single user performance, the high density 7200rpm IDE disks can be faster than some older 10K SCSI disks. In multi user performance they don't even have a chance against the 10Ks. Drives such as the Atlas III and IV and Cheetah 10k.6 are faster no matter what.

If you are wondering about storage performance and infomation, you should go to http://www.storagereview.com and see all their reviews of single drives and user's Raid 0 benchmarks. A few people on the forums do have two 15K.3s in Raid 0.

 

[thesix]

> In multi user performance they don't even have a chance against the 10Ks.
> Drives such as the Atlas III and IV and Cheetah 10k.6 are faster no matter what.

Nobody's challenging the latest and greatest SCSI disk is better
than the latest and greatest IDE disk.

Discussing single disk performance is not the purpose here, leave it to
http://www.storagereview.com (no offense to this site) .

There're many other (more) important issues that could affect I/O performance,
like how to organize data, RAID or not, etc.

Statement like yours makes newbies take it for granted that they
can get better I/O performance by switching to the latest SCSI and/or RAID, which
is not true in many cases, and at what cost ?

The *main* reason people choosing SCSI in multi-user (server) environment is
not the disk is faster, but the more scalable SCSI protocol.