SCSI Gurus and Storage Freaks read within

[flyingpen]

Okay, so here is the dilemma. I finally decided SCSI, here I come. I just bought the hard drive from a reputable guy on eb*y? here?s the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=442292848

The controller card is what has me worried. I got sort of a no name controller off of eb*y because it was cheap. Here?s the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=445625175

Now I now the drive and the controller card are compatible, Ultra Wide 2?. But since it is a no name brand controller I?m sorta nervous at what kind of performance it would be. It is a symbios chipset though? I think. I also bought the SCA to 68pin adapter with terminator and 68 pin cable with termination from compgeeks.com Does the 80 pin adapter cause a performance degradation? Am I doing the right thing here? I was gonna buy the sexy new IBM GXP45?s but I really wanted to go Scuzzy because I used to have a SCSI burner and that thing ruled, never locked up the computer when accessing as IDE CDROM?s do?

And here are my system specs if its helpful. I really appreciate any advice or comments you scuzzi gurus can provide?. Oh, and don?t bother with the IDE vs. SCSI unless your gonna praise my decision. Thanks.

P3-550E OC?d to 733 (PCI & AGP bus still at the same speed)
Asus P3V4X 1004 Bios
128MB PC133 CAS2 Mushkin
Geforce SDR 32
Promise Ultra66
IBM Deskstar 10gig 5400 (ata66 I think)
Maxtor 36gig 5400(ata66)
SB LIVE
Panasonic DVD 5x
HP 32x8x4 burner
Minidisc digital interface
Two Netgear NICS ?100/10

 

[WalkingDead]

That's a Symbios 8751 UW card & that's a name brand card. There's nothing to worry about. It will work in just about any OS you can think of. It fact, it's better & faster than similar UW Adaptec SCSI cards. It will works with U2W drives but only to 40mb/sec. Make sure to set the U2W drive to SE(single end) mode and add a SCSI terminator or have a UW SCSI device at the end of the SCSI cable (U2W/LVD HDD doesn't have build-in SCSI terminator).

Stay away from 80 pin SCA drives unless you have a SCA backplate. SCA-UW or U2W adapters are too much pain in the ass. That Seagate SCA drive need a LVD approved SCA-U2W adapter to runs. If that's the only device in the SCSI chain, then you need a LVD SCA-U2W adapter that has a build-in LVD terminator. A good one will cost you $20-$40. Please be careful not to get a SCA-UW only adapter. Now you know why I said SCA adapters PITA.

 

[flyingpen]

Well thanks a lot for the info but my head is still spinning. I also bought these two things at compgeeks.com for the termination/converter: http://www.compgeeks.com/cgi-bin/details.asp?cat=Drives&sku=205-6950 It does say it has active termination. Do you think it will work? And yes, this will probably be the only drive on the SCSI chain, at least for now. The other thing is the cable with termination: http://www.compgeeks.com/cgi-bin/details.asp?cat=Drives&sku=205-1362

They both claim to have active termination.
Thanks again for the info

 

[pm]

I have that same drive. You'll be happy with it and you got it for about $40 less than I paid for mine back in July. It's fast, it's mostly quiet for a Seagate SCSI drive, and it doesn't really get hot enough to require a fan. Wait until you feel it - the drive feels like it's made of lead - it's WAY heavier than an equivalent 18GB IDE drive. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it is reassuring. The Barracuda is an Ultra2 drive - 80MB/s max throughput. I have the 80-pin and I have a backplate - as WD said, it's a pain - although not that big a deal.

The card is a good brand - Symbios (now LSI Logic) makes good chips. In my opinion from a performance and csot standpoint, they make better cards than Adaptec. What Walkingdead(WD) said is correct, your card is UW - not Ultra2. So you will be limited to 40MB/s max throughput, and you will need to force the drive into 40MB/s mode by setting the drive into Single-Ended mode by setting one jumper. It's worth mentioning that the drive bursts (IIRC) into the 40's, so you will be losing out slightly on some max. throughput by running on UW instead of U2W, but I doubt it's that big a deal.

My Tekram U2W SCSI card (DC390B with a Symbios chip) automatically terminates the chain with only this drive. My card came with a terminating resistor gizmo, but I've never had to use with with either my Seagate Barracuda or Seagate Cheetah drives.

Good luck.

 

[flyingpen]

Hmmm.... so my card is just Ultra Wide, for the 80 I need a Ultra Wide 2 card... and the Tekram DC390B is an Ultra 2 Wide card right? Crap, I already bought the other one... Oh well. I guess I'll have to buy another one down the line.. .What's this Ultra160 stuff I hear about? Oh and does it really make a difference between the 40 vs. 80 MB per second? I know I notice minimal difference between ATA33 vs 66... Thanks

 

[pm]

<< Hmmm.... so my card is just Ultra Wide, for the 80 I need a Ultra Wide 2 card... >>



Correct. In my post I was saying U2W for Ultra2 Wide. UW is 40MB/s and U2W is 80MB/s max throughput.



<< and the Tekram DC390B is an Ultra 2 Wide card right? >>



Yes, it's Ultra2 Wide. It costs about twice what you paid for yours - it's about $110 from most places on the net. It (usually) comes with the cable though.



<< What's this Ultra160 stuff I hear about? >>



It's the next generation of Ultra SCSI. You could think of UW as Ultra40, U2W as Ultra80 and now we have Ultra160. Similar to ATA33, ATA66 and ATA100.



<< Oh and does it really make a difference between the 40 vs. 80 MB per second? >>



Yes, you have bought a fairly fast drive and so you are in the position where the drive will be faster than the controller, so your total throughput in some situations will be limited by the bandwidth of the controller. I can't recall the numbers exactly, but I'm pretty certain that my drive bursts well above 40MB/s. IIRC, it's not that much faster than 40MB/s though. I can't remember how fast I typically benched it, and I'm worried that I might get the numbers confused with my U2W 10krpm Cheetah drive, so I'm not going to quote anything, but I think you will see a small but noticeable difference between UW and U2W.



<< I know I notice minimal difference between ATA33 vs 66... >>



But you probably have a 5400rpm drive which isn't capable of reading out much faster than 33MB/s - if even that. So, your bandwidth is limited by your harddrive. A faster IDE hard drive would probably see a bigger difference.

But like I said, I doubt you will notice the difference. There will be a difference, but it will likely be one that is more noticeable in benchmarks than in real life. The biggest thing that a user usually notices is seek rate - and that's not changed by the interface. You might get a 10-20% improvement in burst read transfers by upgrading the interface, but I wonder how noticeable this would be in real life.

Anyway, enjoy your drive and don't worry about it.

 

[flyingpen]

Thanks a lot for the info PM. Long time reader, first time poster =) I think I'll try posting more questions along the line, I didn't know how informative it would be.

 

[flyingpen]

Indecisive bastard that I am, I decided to sell that controller I got on eb*y, after I benchmark it of course with the SCSI drives. I got another SCSI drive, an 18gig Atlas V. Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=450885289

And got another controller, this one is really no name but I'm going to benchmark it... it uses the Initio chipset? I think the chipset is a good brand but the makers of the card don't exisist or something... closest thing I found was Koutech? which shares the same model number 930W. Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=451015080

Now, if I get lower numbers on this PowerMedia Initio card then from the Symbios card, I'll sell it too on eb*y and get a Tekram card. Seems like I'm going through a lot of trouble, doh, should have just bought the tekram in the first place. We'll see... And I also decided to sell off my Maxtor 36gig and IBM 10gig... SCSI all the way!

 

[WalkingDead]

Initio cards are good and it will runs in any OS. They are big in the Mac world too. I'm currently using a dual channel Initio SCSI card in my machine. Initio may not be as well known as Adaptec or Symbios but they're just as good. IMHO, Initio cards are always have better building quality and less buggy than Tekram.

This card looks like it is a re-badged Initio card Speedway U2W Initio Website. If it uses Initio driver and bios, then it should has no problems at all.

Why don't you just get a 10k drive &amp; be happy about it?