SCSI-2 vs. ATA-100

[joohang]

Does anybody know which one is faster?

A SCSI-2 HD compared to my Maxtor 20GB 7200rpm.

What if I put SCSI-2 in RAID0?

Here are my computer specs:
Duron 800
256MB RAM
Maxtor 20GB ATA-100 7200rpm
Windows 2000 Server

I'm just looking for smoother application performance and faster booting times, etc.

Thanks.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Well, it depends some on which hard drives you choose to compare, but you can certainly find SCSI-2 drives that will outperform any ATA-100 drive out there. They will also be considerably more expensive. To match your drive with another 7200 RPM SCSI, look at the Quantum Atlas V 18GB. I'm sure that drive could run circles around yours. Nevermind the Atlas 10K or 10K II.

A few SCSI-2 drives in RAID0 is sure to blow anything IDE out of the water, though I don't recommend RAID0 since it is expensive to get a hardware based RAID card, and software based RAID is not especially wonderful. Plus, RAID0 makes data loss much more likely.

 

[Viperoni]

*sigh*
This topic has been discussed to the death
The interface is rarely the limiting factor, the throughput of the Hard Drive is.
Get a fast HD and either SCSI or udma33/66/100 will be fast.
For you, I'd recommend a paid of 7200rpm IDE hard drives, Raid0 them, and you'll be happy.

 

[joohang]

Viperoni,

I am buying the SCSI-2 hard drives second hand so I do not know the exact specs.

Maybe I should've made it more clear. I was asking for a comparison between a "typical" SCSI-2 HD and a "typical" ATA-100 HD.

 

[Pariah]

Considering how old SCSI2 HD's are (read, no 10k drives), I would guess that any current IDE drive would be considerably faster.

 

[Viperoni]

The "typical" SCSI-2 drives would probably be something like a Seagate Hawk, running @ 5400rpm....
So if you put 4 into a Raid0 array you should be able to crack the 10-15mbps barrier.....but then again...a Raid0 array of 2 IBM 75gxp's wouldn't have any trouble at all with 30mbps.

 

[borealiss]

go w/ the eide drives, scsi-2 is so old, so the drives that go with it are going to be too. i think i have an old 5400 rpm 1 gig seagate that hooked up to my isa scsi-2 controller that i used on my 486. you get the idea.

 

[ElFenix]

scsi 2 fast and wide is only like 20 mb/s max. a new ata drive goes around 30.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Oops, I assumed he meant SCSI-2 Ultra (aka LVD).
If you're looking at SCSI-2 straight, you are looking at older and slower drives, the only advantage you may see in that case is lower CPU utilization. I'd only reccomend going with a SCSI-2 drive if you've already got an all SCSI system and you're just looking to add some cheap extra storage. What are you going to be doing with these drives anyway?

 

[joohang]

I can get 3 1gig HD's for $35 (Canadian) so I thought I'd play with a couple of SCSI hard drives for fun.

So I was just wondering what kind of performance I can expect from SCSI-2 drives.

I want to get those 15K rpm Ultra 160 ones, but my budget doesn't allow it.

I also had some very interesting input at StorageReview.com. If you're interested, take a look at it. http://www.storagereview.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/007095.html

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Yeah, I wouldn't really bother with that. It might be useful if you want to learn about RAID and SCSI, but that's about it. If your budget is really tight and you want something with decent performance you can pick up an old 4GB SCSI drive for about $50 (I know because I'm selling one). Not sure if it would outperform your IDE drive, however.