SCSI-II - an effective speed bost for older machines?

[cheesehead]

I've got a PIII-600, 384mb of RAM, and an ATI Rage 128 video card in my Linux machine. It runs blisteringly fast, except when it comes to hard drive access - it seems to be a stumbling block for an otherwise fast machine, with load times ranging from "lousy" to "eww".

I was thinking of adding an inexpensive SCSI-II card (about ten bucks) and 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive between nine and eighteen gigabytes, hopefully not more than another $15 or so. SCSI has many advantages over IDE, and while SATA is in some ways superior, a WD Raptor is a lot more expensive than a $10 Maxtor Atlas.

Am I off my gourd, or would this make sense?

 

[regnez]

Not that this is an answer to your question, but what version of linux are you using that runs blisteringly fast on that machine? DSL?

 

[bendixG15]

Lotsa people say SCSI has no real speed advamtage ove IDE 100.

For $15 or so you could pick up a PIII-1000 which would give a kick up (if the mobo can handle it). Another 256 or 512 of memory would hlp too.

Good Luck

 

[Arcanedeath]

This depends on your motherboard, but an IDE or Sata card w/ a cheap 7200 rpm 16mb Cache drive is prolly a better bet than an old 10k Atlas + scsi 2 card.

 

[bob4432]

only problem with those old 10K drives is that they are really loud and really hot. if you don't mind the noise then go for it...think scsi II was 80MB/s...so yeah, should be good to go.

i am not too familiar and maybe somebody will fix this if it is an error - was scsi II 50pin?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: bendixG15
Lotsa people say SCSI has no real speed advamtage ove IDE 100.

For $15 or so you could pick up a PIII-1000 which would give a kick up (if the mobo can handle it). Another 256 or 512 of memory would hlp too.

Good Luck

lotsa people are wrong.

on the older machines scsi did a good job because the card reduced the cpu utilization a lot. not a big deal now but back in the day it meant quite a bit.

and i don't think you are going to get a 1GHz P3 for $15....you see at least the skt370 p3s were dual capable so still in at least some demand. put a dual p3 @1GHz with a u160 18GB 10-15K hdd, 512-1GB of pc133 and you actually have a decent machine for everyday computing like email, word, browsing and some decent number crunching. these setups are still in use quite often. or using it as a server, it could do quite well especially considering its age.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: regnez
Not that this is an answer to your question, but what version of linux are you using that runs blisteringly fast on that machine? DSL?

Mepis with XFCE. Runs dandy. I can't see why you need a dual 1ghz machine for web browsing - my 600mhz PIII works great! (The price is hard to argue with, too.)

I'm having a local Linux guru walk me through installing and configuring Debian - he accepts payment in Bawls and Mountian Dew.

As a side note, Linux will boot using roughly 60mb of RAM if configured properly - I'm lazy, so we'll say 80mb. Yes, I'm using a "diet" GUI, but I can run Firefox, OpenOffice, and Xchat at the same time without any trouble - it's really a pretty neat little machine.

 

[AllGamer]

i upgraded an old Dual P3-1000mhz system (1 gb RAM) with a SATA 10k RPM and OMG that thing is performing as good as any new machine of now in days.
also same with an old P3-1400mhz system.

Good for gaming, and everything else.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead

Originally posted by: regnez
Not that this is an answer to your question, but what version of linux are you using that runs blisteringly fast on that machine? DSL?

Mepis with XFCE. Runs dandy. I can't see why you need a dual 1ghz machine for web browsing - my 600mhz PIII works great! (The price is hard to argue with, too.)

I'm having a local Linux guru walk me through installing and configuring Debian - he accepts payment in Bawls and Mountian Dew.

As a side note, Linux will boot using roughly 60mb of RAM if configured properly - I'm lazy, so we'll say 80mb. Yes, I'm using a "diet" GUI, but I can run Firefox, OpenOffice, and Xchat at the same time without any trouble - it's really a pretty neat little machine.

i wasn't saying a dual p3 was necessary, but just that it was very quick, much faster than one would think.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: bob4432

i wasn't saying a dual p3 was necessary, but just that it was very quick, much faster than one would think.

Dualie 1.4ghz Celerons would be a mean machine indeed.

I think that a 500mhz PIII is, strictly speaking, all that is needed for 90% of computing applications - with a properly optimized OS, it's enough horsepower to run Firefox, play Mp3s, chat, write papers, yadda yadda yadda et cetra. I know a 400mhz G4 is actually capable of all of the above.

Of course, Mp3 ripping requires some oomph, and gaming obviously requires a lot of power, as does video editing, et cetera.

 

[Steve]

IIRC, SCSI-2 is 10MB/sec.

You want a card that's at least U2W (Ultra 2 Wide, 80MB/s). Let me know if you need one, I have three lying around.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: sm8000
IIRC, SCSI-2 is 10MB/sec.

You want a card that's at least U2W (Ultra 2 Wide, 80MB/s). Let me know if you need one, I have three lying around.

thanks for clearing that up does u2w use 68pin or are they different?

 

[Zepper]

I was thinking that an IDE controller would work just as well too. I use the Syba IDE/RAID card that costs under $20. shipped (may find for less in the FS/T section here). And you can often get good drives for cheap in the OpenBox section on Newegg or even in the new product section or the For Sale/Trade section here. Most recent Linux kernels come with support for the SiliconImage chipset that the Syba uses. The card will support any size HDD of up to ATA-133 and can do RAID if wanted in the future. I put one in a friend's old Sony Vaio PIII machine which couldn't handle the new 80GB WD drive he had bought and it made the drive sing.

.bh.

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: sm8000
IIRC, SCSI-2 is 10MB/sec.

You want a card that's at least U2W (Ultra 2 Wide, 80MB/s). Let me know if you need one, I have three lying around.

thanks for clearing that up does u2w use 68pin or are they different?

Yup, U2W (and above) are 68-pin cable connectors. U40SE (40MB/s, Single Ended) is also 68-pin but electrically different IIRC.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Zepper
I was thinking that an IDE controller would work just as well too. I use the Syba IDE/RAID card that costs under $20. shipped (may find for less in the FS/T section here). And you can often get good drives for cheap in the OpenBox section on Newegg or even in the new product section or the For Sale/Trade section here. Most recent Linux kernels come with support for the SiliconImage chipset that the Syba uses. The card will support any size HDD of up to ATA-133 and can do RAID if wanted in the future. I put one in a friend's old Sony Vaio PIII machine which couldn't handle the new 80GB WD drive he had bought and it made the drive sing.

.bh.

i just picked up one of the syba cards and it had the via 6241 chipset, has 1 ide port and 2 sata ports...just an fyi

 

[Slugbait]

Back in the day, I spent too much on my PII-350 system, cuz I went with a P2B-LS and a 4G LVD drive. However, Windows was ready within seconds of the splash screen, and game level loading was blistering fast.

I still have my Plextor 40TSi from that system, it rips albums amazingly fast, just a couple of minutes. It's in a W2K machine right now.

U2W and an LVD drive should be just the ticket you're looking for.

 

[Zepper]

Yeah, Syba mostly but not always uses SI chips on their controllers. I wouldn't try adding a SATA card to a machine that doesn't already have some SATA on the mobo. They seem to act hinky if you do. Stick to PATA only on those old boys - they don't know from this SATA noise...

.bh.

 

[cheesehead]

I think I'll go with SCSI. The high transfer rates of the 10,000rpm drives are supposed to be worth the slightly slower (80mb/s) interface.

As an aside, I found a guy who's selling some SCSI-160 drives cheaply. Anyone know where to get a cheap SCSI-160 controller?

 

[Steve]

I might still have mine lying around, but there's no point on a PCI bus that does 133MB/s on paper, and under 100 in real life. 80 is plenty of headroom for a single drive.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: sm8000
I might still have mine lying around, but there's no point on a PCI bus that does 133MB/s on paper, and under 100 in real life. 80 is plenty of headroom for a single drive.

Yes, but these are cheap enough (36gb for about $20) that it's worth finding one anyway.

 

[Steve]

The drive is one thing, the card another. U160 drives work just fine on U2W channels, they are compatible. You don't have to worry about "the drive not running at U160" because a single drive would be lucky to consistently break 80. I'll bet if you look up that particular drive's model number, either on the maker's website or in the storagereview.com performance database, that you'd find that particular drive's performance not compelling of a U160 channel. You really need three to five of the best U160 drives (all constantly transferring) to consistently saturate a single U160 channel. What drive did you find?

 

[Zepper]

Those older 10K SCSI drives aren't all that fast on sustained output - but they can probably saturate a 40MB (SCSI II) adapter - for sure with two or more. I'd want to have at least a U80 card. U160 cards aren't that expensive either. What the old 10k drives are good at relative to SATA/PATA (except maybe for Raptor) is random access - fast heads that you can really hear when they are working...

Hey OP,
. I may be offloading the SCSI stuff I'm still using soon. LMK if you're interested. I have a really nice U80 card I'm not using right now - it's a Tekram! Check the link in my sig.

.bh.