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IDE RAID vs SCSI RAID

R

reicherb

Platinum Member
I'm looking to determine the best solution for some light video editing, gaming, and office apps and am wondering if SCSI is worth the cost.

Here are the setups I was looking at for comparison only. I'm sure there are faster drives in both flavors and each can be found for cheaper.

------------------------------------------------------------
IDE RAID5
(1) Adaptec 2400A = $290
(4) Deskstar 40GB U100 7200 2MB = $300
Total = $590
------------------------------------------------------------
SCSI RAID5
(1) Adaptec 2000S = $225
(4) Seagate 36.9GB U160 10k 4MB = $1100
Total = $1325
------------------------------------------------------------

The IDE drives are slightly bigger and much cheaper. Are the SCSI drives enough faster to make it worth the cost?
 
It depends how important your data is as SCSI driver are more reliable the IDE, but since you want to go with RAID 5 which I believe had redundency (SP) you should be fine with IDE RAID but do yourself a favor and not use IBM drives in RAID, that asking for trouble.
 
If you need RAID 5 then by all means get SCSI! Also, I'd recommend a Mylex 170 RAID HBA over Adaptec.

For your listed applicaton you can save a lot of money and use two 40GB drives mirrored and two 20GB drives striped on a 3Ware 4 channel controller. You will get the best performance for the money and not have to worry about your applications on the mirrored volume. Just use the striped volume for undo/scratch data.

Ironcially, IBM GXP drives perform best on ATA RAID controllers but their use nowadays (esp. with RAID 0) is like having unprotected sex with prostitutes! :Q

Cheers!
 
I've been running an Adaptec 2400a with (4) 40GB Western Digital 7200RPM drives in RAID 5 for several months now and couldn't be happier with it.

I bought the Adaptec card used from the FS/FT forums here and the previous owner upgraded the cache to 128MB, I think it comes with 16MB. I paid $175 for it, and the drives cost $72 each from newegg. The total cost was $475.
 
StorageReview.com has tons of reviews. Don't know if they have one that compares IDE and SCSI, but they do have a review comparing all the "high-end" IDE RAID cards (Adaptec 2400a, 3Ware Escalade 7450, Promise SX6000) and the Adaptec spanks the others in RAID 5 with 4 drives. Sustained data transfer of between 52MB/sec and 85MB/sec with less than 3% CPU usage and high I/O performance, too, which is probably way more performance than you need for what you said you will be doing.
 
DO nOT get THE ADAPTEC SCSI RAID CARD> IT IS HORRIBLE!!. sorry..had to get that off my chest.


THe card has shown pitiful performance. Even sometimes performing wekaer than just a single drive.
 
Originally posted by: Goosemaster
DO nOT get THE ADAPTEC SCSI RAID CARD> IT IS HORRIBLE!!. sorry..had to get that off my chest.

THe card has shown pitiful performance. Even sometimes performing wekaer than just a single drive.
Click to expand...
WHO SAID TO GET THE ADAPTEC SCSI RAID CARD? Sorry... Just for clarity - the card I'm talking about, the Adaptec 2400A, is an IDE RAID card and has received the best reviews of any IDE RAID card, and is clearly the best choice if you want to do RAID 5 with IDE drives.

 
3Ware cards are better than the Adaptec card. Especially if you want RAID5. The 7500 series with R5 Fusion is far and away the best IDE RAID 5 performance series. Unfortunately, you pay for that performance as they are quite expensive, $250 for 4 port, $365 for 8 port.
 
3Ware cards are better than the Adaptec card. Especially if you want RAID5.
Click to expand...
Not according to any reviews I have read. Unless you need more than 4 channels I still say the 2400A is your best choice.
 
Originally posted by: Pariah
Where have you seen a review for the 7500 series?
Click to expand...
Where have you? I couldn't find even one anywhere, so unless you can cough up something we'll assume you work for 3ware's marketing department 😉

 
Originally posted by: Workin'
Originally posted by: Pariah
Where have you seen a review for the 7500 series?
Click to expand...
Where have you? I couldn't find even one anywhere, so unless you can cough up something we'll assume you work for 3ware's marketing department 😉
Click to expand...

Then how can you claim the reviews differ if you've never seen one?

Here are the numbers:

Performance Benchmark for 7500-4 and 7500-8

And before you start questioning the source, 3Ware has posted benchmarks for every new series of cards they release, and they have always been spot on with SR and other reliable review sites. The RAID0 numbers exceed the bandwidth of 32bit/33MHz PCI so they are clearly superior to even the theoretical limit of the Adaptec card. The RAID5 numbers are so far in favor of the 3Ware it's almost sad.

"Has anybody seen any reviews comparing IDE and SCSI RAID?"

There are too many variables to make any sort of useful comparison between the 2. RAID 5 is a terrible idea for video editing, and not much better for the other applications you have in mind. If you can afford the SCSI setup you listed above, get a 15k drive for apps and a 73GB 10k drive for data/scratch disk. If need be add a large 5400IDE drive for backup purposes. It will still be cheaper than SCSI RAID and perform better with greater versatility.
 
Then how can you claim the reviews differ if you've never seen one?
Click to expand...
I ask the same of you! The performance 3ware claims in their brochure is pretty much what the StorageReview.com review found for the Adaptec controller. Each one is slightly faster or slower than the other depending on the test. Not like the Promise SX6000 which is slower on every test.

I'm not saying the 3ware card is bad, all I'm saying is that independent reviews say the Adaptec is good.

I think that's all we need to say because this isn't really helping reicherb. Who doesn't need to spend the money on a SCSI setup for what he is looking to do.
 
"I ask the same of you!"

I just linked you to numbers. You apparently haven't even heard of the card.

"Each one is slightly faster or slower than the other depending on the test."

I'm not sure what you are looking at, maybe if you posted the numbers you are comparing it would make more sense. The 3ware cards bombs the Adaptec across the board, rarely by less than 100% and by as much as 800% in some of the Iometer tests.

"I'm not saying the 3ware card is bad, all I'm saying is that independent reviews say the Adaptec is good."

The 7500 is a brand new line from 3Ware designed specifically with RAID 5 in mind. The Adaptec card was good in its day, but no longer is it top dog. It's also horribly overpriced just like everything else Adaptec sells.

"Who doesn't need to spend the money on a SCSI setup for what he is looking to do."

I fail to see how discussing IDE RAID controllers is in any way counterproductive to not recommending a SCSI RAID setup, when the other option he considering is an IDE RAID setup. I wouldn't recommend RAID for him at all, but that's his choice.
 
What kind of video editing? If you are editing MiniDV then SCSI is overkill. Any recent (less than 2yr old) 7200RPM IDE drive is enough to edit MiniDV.

IMO, for what you want SCSI is only going to give you bragging rights. Not a noticable performance increase.


Lethal
 
If you're looking at any kind of RAID solution, and you have a VIA chipset, this may be of interest to you...

VIA chipsets slow PCI cards

In the meantime, I'd recommend SCSI if you can afford it.
That's all it comes down to - the general consensus is that you wont require the performance of either flavour of RAID, but if you can seriously afford it, then why wouldn't you?

As long as you're selective with your components, a SCSI raid array is going to outperform ANY single drive for some time to come...

To say you wont notice it is a lie, also.
I know how much quicker my rig is, across the board whenever intense HDD I/O is involved (Boot time, for instance), compared to when I ran my 60gb Seagate barra IV as the primary drive... But I run RAID-0, not 5.
RAID5 is still going to spank a single drive, however.

Also if you ever need additional capacity, you're not as limited by the number of drives as you are with IDE RAID...

SCSI is vastly superior, and you'd be a fool to argue with that, but is it cost effective?
In your case, probably not.

Just my .02

Ph0
 
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