SCSI vs. IDE cd-roms

[ChrisIsBored]

Ok which would be faster? 40x SCSI cd-rom, or a 72x IDE?

 

[IamDavid]

72X IDE..

 

[ChrisIsBored]

And what about 40X SCSI vs. 52X IDE?

 

[pdo]

52x IDE

 

[ChrisIsBored]

ahhh so what's the advantage to using a SCSI cd-rom?

 

[PreludeVT]

less CPU utilization for SCSI CD-ROM and it can substain a higher average transfer rate than IDE.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Well, you must be taking about the kenwood IDE drives, no? It is arguable whether or not they are really all that fast, and it depends on what you are doing with them. In some cases (many?), the 40X Plextor SCSI drive will do just as well if not better. For example, if you are going to do a lot of DAE, the Plextor drive wins hands down. The kenwood drives also take longer to spin up, which can be quite annoying.

And then there are the limitations of IDE, which you escape when using SCSI. SCSI devices have extremely low CPU utilization, IDE devices do not. Your average IDE setup limits you to four devices, today's SCSI gives you 15. With IDE, only one device per channel may be "speaking" at a given time, making it tricky to set up a CDROM and a burner, whereas SCSI of course does not have this limitation. I have also read (but had people argue that this was not true) that when you have two IDE devices on a channel, their effective bandwidth is cut in half, even if one of them isn't doing anything...SCSI devices do not have this limitation.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Now that's the type of info i've been looking for! Thanks Sir Fredrick.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

No problem Though with your harddrive I'd expect you to already know the advantages of SCSI and the disadvantages of IDE.

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Yea but I wasn't so sure as to how fast the newer IDE cd-roms are getting... I never have time(patience) to research...

 

[Hossenfeffer]

I had a Kenwood 52x that I bought last year. I -love- the lack of much sound when it spins up. Not only that, but it cruised through game installs and such. As I hear from different sources and from experiences I shared, the 52x had trouble reading some discs and recently (after over a year) started "growling" at every power-up. Not to antagonize my cd-rom, I immediately fed it some treats then, while it wasn't looking, I emailed the kenwood tech support. My reply came in a day or so. They gave me an RMA number to return the drive because it was, in the word of the tech, "defective". New drive comin' up.

I'm just dipping my toes into the scsi realms and looking to see how it compares. Picked up a scsi drive from compgeeks recently...

 

[RagingGuardian]

Affreey just introduced a 50X SCSI cdrom. The price may be a little high though.

 

[TimeKeeper]

SCSI

hmm....just minor correction...
today's scsi support up to 30 devices, not just 15.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Timekeeper, what cards are you looking at? I based the 15 device quote on the adaptec 19160 and 29160 cards, which are probably the most popular cards now. Doesn't make sense that it would go up to 30 anyway. Original was 8 - 1 = 7
(the -1 is because the card is counted as a device)
LVD was 16 - 1 = 15
next step would be
32 - 1 = 31

Unless they're using two seperate controllers to achieve that or something.

 

[TimeKeeper]

I am LSI chip fan Own two 390U3W, selling one now


Thought my friend's Adaptec 39160 also support 30 device?

 

[Rent]

My Tru52x is collecting dust on my shelf. It simply has too many problems and It needs an RMA, but Kenwood freakin sux when it comes to their customer service.

I have a Plextor UltraPlex Wide (40x Ultra SCSI) now and I love it. We'll see how long it lasts.