SCSI160 on PCI - how well does it work?gb

[cheesehead]

SCSI drives are cheaper than ever - locally, you can get 18gb 15,000RPM Ultra3 SCSI-160 drives for about $20 each. An Adaptec 3940UW is about $30 on eBay.

Assuming I put my games and programs on 2 18gb hard drives in a RAID-0 array, will I have better performance than an average (7200rpm) SATA hard drive?

 

[themisfit610]

Well... that's debatable. RAID has a lot of overhead, unless you have a pretty sweet (hardware) controller card. I don't know much about SCSI, and nothing about the Adapted 3940UW. If it's half decent you should see a big difference in things that depend on low seek times. 15k RPM ensures that. Overall data transfer speeds might not be that much faster, and remember you are limited by the speed of the other drive a lot of the time with RAID. Copying files between 2 RAID 0 arrays may be fast as hell, but IDE/SATA to a SCSI RAID 0 will probably not be any faster.

Some things benefit immensely from SCSI and RAID, like capturing uncompressed video. Of course, capturing 1080p24 uncompressed will last your 40GB array ~ 4 minutes

I bet that Windows would boot quicker, and general OS interaction would probably be snappier. I'd like to try this out sometime!

~MiSfit

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Well... that's debatable. RAID has a lot of overhead, unless you have a pretty sweet (hardware) controller card. I don't know much about SCSI, and nothing about the Adapted 3940UW. If it's half decent you should see a big difference in things that depend on low seek times. 15k RPM ensures that. Overall data transfer speeds might not be that much faster, and remember you are limited by the speed of the other drive a lot of the time with RAID. Copying files between 2 RAID 0 arrays may be fast as hell, but IDE/SATA to a SCSI RAID 0 will probably not be any faster.

Some things benefit immensely from SCSI and RAID, like capturing uncompressed video. Of course, capturing 1080p24 uncompressed will last your 40GB array ~ 4 minutes

I bet that Windows would boot quicker, and general OS interaction would probably be snappier. I'd like to try this out sometime!

~MiSfit

No RAID, then?

18GB is plenty of space to install my programs and OS. A second, 80GB drive will hold large files, movies, et cetera. (I'm currently running Windows off of a 10GB partition - yes, I'm a miser.)

Transfer rates will not likely be any higher - I did not expect as much. What I'm looking for is performance equal to (or better than) a Raptor at a lower price.

 

[mechBgon]

First off, the 3940UW is for Macs. If you want a Ultra160 card for WinXP, get an Adaptec 19160 or an LSI Logic U160. WinXP has native drivers for both, so there's no messing around with floppies during Windows setup. If you get the 19160, read the documentation so you get your drives onto the right internal plug.

BTW SCSI is not a fast booter-upper in my experience, and I'm somewhat of a SCSI fanboy Since the card has to scan the bus for targets after POST, it's almost certainly going to be slower.

Oh, and if you wanted to do RAID0, maybe look for an LSI Logic 21310. I see one on eBay atm.

 

[Steve]

Like I said in your other thread, you really have to look up the particular drive model's specs and benchmarks. Chances are, those drives are old and may not be comparable to a Raptor. That said, exactly what drives are you looking at?

Also, multiple drives constantly transferring simultaneously on one channel would quickly saturate a consumer-level PCI bus. You might try asking around at forums.storagereview.net as a lot of people there can give you more detailed insight.

 

[Steve]

mechBgon, as a SCSI fan myself, the LSI cards can have their boot time drastically reduced by disabling the scan of unused IDs and LUNs. I did that for my LSI U160, as well as my 8951U and 8953U cards (all using LSI BIOS 4.19.00). Not too familiar with the Adaptecs but I'm sure you can do the same; I went with LSI as they seem to have a better reputation and quality.

P.S. Like the pic

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: sm8000
mechBgon, as a SCSI fan myself, the LSI cards can have their boot time drastically reduced by disabling the scan of unused IDs and LUNs. I did that for my LSI U160, as well as my 8951U and 8953U cards (all using LSI BIOS 4.19.00). Not too familiar with the Adaptecs but I'm sure you can do the same; I went with LSI as they seem to have a better reputation and quality.

I tried that too, but I mustn't have done it right Anyway, with SCSI's 24/7 durability, booting up implies that you ever bother shutting down

P.S. Like the pic

Isn't she hawt?!

 

[Steve]

I'm trying to remember exactly how to do it (I just took the card out last week). I believe you only enable the ID and LUN of the drive(s) and of the card. Also in LSI's menu somewhere is a setting for Verbage (I think?) - it can be Verbose or Terse, the latter being faster. I'll look through LSI's BIOS when I get a chance (I like having the same BIOS for a whole family of cards) and post back what I recall.

I also have a Cheetah - a 9GB 15k drive that I really need to fire up and put to good use.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
First off, the 3940UW is for Macs. If you want a Ultra160 card for WinXP, get an Adaptec 19160 or an LSI Logic U160. WinXP has native drivers for both, so there's no messing around with floppies during Windows setup. If you get the 19160, read the documentation so you get your drives onto the right internal plug.

BTW SCSI is not a fast booter-upper in my experience, and I'm somewhat of a SCSI fanboy Since the card has to scan the bus for targets after POST, it's almost certainly going to be slower.

Oh, and if you wanted to do RAID0, maybe look for an LSI Logic 21310. I see one on eBay atm.

I'm not looking for quick boot-up. Heck, I'm not looking for raptor-in-RAID level performance.

What I am looking for is something cheap ($15 for a hard drive + $25 for a card) that will perform better than a 7200rpm SATA drive.

Also, if anyone wants to help initiate me into the SCSI society, I'd be most accepting of a SCSI-II (ultra-wide 80mbps version, please) card and matching 10,000rpm hard drive - both are about $5-$10 on eBay, but I'm not sure of how to match them.

I'm currently trying to build the fastest system possible using the cheapest components, and server-grade SCSI drives are a deam come true for the non-profits I'm designing these for - start-up time is much less important that disk access speed and reliability.

Thanks for all the help - it's nice seeing someone tell me something other than RTFM.

 

[mechBgon]

I'm currently trying to build the fastest system possible using the cheapest components, and server-grade SCSI drives are a deam come true for the non-profits I'm designing these for - start-up time is much less important that disk access speed and reliability.

As someone who used to be the IT guy at a non-profit with about 100 employees, I have to wonder what you think they need fast disk access speed for? An application that demanding (SQL Server?) shouldn't be run on leftover mismatched hardware that might've been handled roughly before being sold on eBay for beer money.

 

[Steve]

The thing is, often SCSI drives that are cheap are cheap because they're old and slow. They were faster than IDE drives of their same vintage, but I'm not sure it's easy or possible to find an older SCSI drive that's faster than a newer ATA drive. If you do, it likely won't be at your desired price point.

Don't forget that SCSI drives usually aren't designed to excel in single drive systems, but in multi-disk arrays, which only makes your search harder I realize.

This is why I encourage you to check out Storagereview's Performance Database. Find a few drives that are in the ballpark of your performance point, compare them to "a 7200rpm SATA drive" and then pick by price.

Also, you don't want SCSI-II, you want U2W (Ultra 2 Wide). I have three U2W cards that you can have any one of for $15. I also have a couple of SCSI-II cards if you'd rather :evil: Let me know if you need cables and terminators too.

Off the top of my head:

U320 = Ultra320: 320MB/s (aka U4W)
U160 = Ultra160: 160MB/s (aka U3W)
U2W = Ultra 2 Wide: 80MB/s
UW = U40SE: 40MB/s
Ultra SCSI = 20MB/s

 

[bob4432]

don't forget that the old 160 and more importantly 15k scsi hdds got hot - like you need passive cooling hot. the newer ones are better, but d@mn, you will burn a finger on the older ones....go u160 and have fun

i know what storage reviews db says, but when i use my rig compared to my friends rig with a raptor, mine is noticeably quicker and the 15k.5 is not the best at all in a single user setup. i don't think i could ever go slower. and i have even done blind tests so it wasn't like i knew which rig i was messing with - i wante to make sure i wasn't suffering from the placebo effect. if you go raid0, depending on how old you run the risk of hitting the max of the pci bus - in theory 133MB/s but in reality i have found it to be ~100MB/s since my 15k.5 burst and also have a str of the same speed....

 

[Phoenix97]

Have a look on eBay. You can probably find a 36GB MAS for $35 and a MAU for $50.
The MAS series is quite fast, but the MAU will blow away many of the drives StorageReview has looked at, in some cases, even the newest Raptors. This assumes you have a controller that can handle at least 80 MB/sec.