SCSI v. IDE RAID

[KuSang]

Trying to decide whether to use scsi or a built in IDE RAID controller on the Abit KT7 for my hdd's. Would 2 EIDE 7200 rpm hdd's on RAID outperform 1 10,000 rpm UltraSCSI hdd?

Money is not really an issue here, and I'm also considering going with a SCSI RAID array. Does anyone know of a good SCSI RAID controller for a decent price? Using W98, probaby nothing lower that Ultra on the RAID controller.

 

[Ulysses]

1. I saw a review that compared an IDE RAID-0 to a single SCSI Utra 10,000 rpm HDD and the IDE setup won by a significant margin. Unfortunately I don't have the link. With other types of RAID's I'm not so sure.

2. I'm not knowledgeable about SCSI, but I would think that a SCSI RAID would outperform an IDE RAID in most cases. But you are talking about a very significant price difference. The beauty of these new IDE RAID motherboards is that they are so cheap for what they potentially offer.

 

[DaveJ]

SCSI RAID will work better if you're doing multiple operations at once, IDE RAID can only handle one request per channel at a time, SCSI can handle many more. Your best bet for SCSI RAID performance would probably be to get two or more smaller drives and set them up for RAID 0, or 0+1 if you want redundancy. RAID 5 is slower for writes so you'd need a fair amount of cache memory on the card to compensate. If you're running Win98 only your options are pretty much limited to DPT (Now Adaptec) for SCSI RAID...

Dave

 

[Howard]

Adaptec SCSI RAID cards are expensive, though.

The 2100S, their lowest end SCSI RAID card, is $470 on Pricewatch.

 

[BT7990]

If money is no object...

http://www.tekram.com/hot_products.asp?Product=DC-922

$600+

 

[Radboy]

http://www.mylex.com/products/acceleraid/datasheets/aclrd15.html

 

[BowDown]

I'm building a SCSI RAID Setup now! I ended up spending alot on the controller so I had to do a little skimping on the HD's for now

I'm building a setup using:

-Adaptec 133U2 w/16MB's of Cache (3-Channels!)
-(5) IBM 4.3gig 5400RPM HD's
-RAID 0 + 1 (I have 4 Drives on the Level0 and 1 for mirroring)

Overkill... yes! But it's all in good fun.

I got the controller for $320.00 and the (5) HD's for $220.00. So with $540.00 invested I have a kick ass RAID Setup. I will upgrade to 10,000RPM Cheetahs when a good deal passes my way .

 

[BowDown]

Oh ya... I can't run 98 or Me for the time being... Sucks there's no drivers for them. Ah well, Windows 2000 Pro is good enough for anything I will have to do. I will post some benchmarks when all my HD's come in this week.

 

[zetter]

What don't you use RAID5 instead of 0+1?

 

[BowDown]

The writting performance of a RAID 5 sucks. After thinking about it more I'm just going to use a (5) Drive RAID 0. That way I get the max performance and if a drive fails; oh well... I back up my stuff on my server and cd's, shouldn't loose too much.

 

[downhiller80]

Can that tekram take all 16 drives in one array??

Imagine that sucker with 16 seagate x15's in RAID 10 . . .

ONLY 128Mb of cache is a bit limited

+ it'll keep the v6000 happy by making it feel less abnormally huge.

Seb

 

[thorin]

If money isn't an issue then there's no question, go SCSI. However if you don't want to waste your montey on SCSI (go with IDE RAID for now), wait a year and a half and go SerialATA (in RAID if need be).

Thorin

 

[Radboy]

SCSI + IDE RAID have diff strengths. IDE RAID is good for sustained x-fer rates, but sux at seek times (compared to current generation SCSI drives), which makes it good for things like video + audio capture. SCSI has blazing fast seek/access times (sub 5ms, sub 4ms for the 15Krpm X15), which makes it great for running an OS, apps, swap file.

I recommend a small (9GB, 18GB) fast (10Krpm, 15Krpm) SCSI drive for running ur OS, apps & swap, and IDE drives for everything else. This will get max system perf while minimizing costs.

SCSI + ISE drives will co-exist in the same system.

I've heard many IDE RAID horror stories over at storagereview.com bbs. They are not known as the most reliable controllers.

 

[Soccerman]

SCSI vs IDE raid. SCSI rules in windows. IDE rules when there are long transfers. with IDE raid, you'll see a small improvement (a second or two) in windows start up time, and your games and their levels will load faster.

with SCSI, becuase they have insanely LOW access time, it is great for speeding up your whole computer, and you don't have to worry bout IDE channels, or anything like that, when you want to upgrade. a high end SCSI drive is pretty quick too. I think they top at around 40 megs/second, which is where IBM 75GXP drives beat them (becuase the outer edge of the disk has alot more data going by then the inner edge).

SCSI means this. upgradeability. Low CPU usage. and quick overall computing experiance. you can also save IRQ's by disabling the onboard IDE controllers on your motherbaord.

IDE RAID means this. no upgradeability, same CPU usage as normal IDE, some increase in computer speed (not in all areas necessarily), and more IRQ's taken up. it's also cheaper.

with SCSI, you could get a RAID card, and one very nice SCSI drive, then when you want to spend the cash, you could add the second SCSI drive (probably at a lower price then the first), and set up RAID. and if you want, you could also have more then 4 drives in RAID (depends on the card).

however once you talk about more then 4 drives (on any typical transfer if you were doing striping, you would fill the SCSI card's limits in terms of bandwidth), you need to address the PCI bus limit (133megs a second).

obviously I recommend SCSI! IDE RAID isn't worth it IMHO. then of course is ATA-Serial, which looks ok, probably great for RAID (multiple drives), however SCSI drives will always have their superior disk access time, and lower CPU usage (don't buy into the ATA-Serial being lower CPU usage).

it's probably going to be good in terms of price wise too.. so if you want a major RAID rig without too much $, then ATA Serial would be good, however disc access time is very important too, and IDE drives still haven't gone to the extremes that SCSI drives have to reduce disk access times).