This will never be settled! Do you use an all SCSI or all IDE based sytem and why?

[wesman6]

I currently have both in my rig. I know that IDE has come along way when it comes to CD-RWs, but I can be burning CD to CD-RW and be playing a DVD and playing games and surfing the Web without having to worry about CPU utlizations. SCSi still uses the CPU cycles a lot less than IDE. That's the reason I have both.

 

[AdamK47]

IDE! I have a 60GB array with a two IBM 7.2K RPM 30GB 75GXP drives and controller for the same price as a single 18GB 10K RPM skuzzy.

 

[Noriaki]

Was wondering when this would up NFS4 As you probably saw yesterday I mostly agree with you, but I'll post just for kicks

IDE all the way, everything that goes in my system is subject to price/performance ratio. I want high value for my $, and SCSI doesn't offer it. I don't have the need for 15+ devices, and without it the benefits of SCSI seem small to me. I'm not shelling out the cash for super-fast SCSI drives, I just don't need it..a good solid IBM or Maxtor 7200rpm IDE drive is fast enough for me. And for optical drives...well I still think SCSI burners hold a slight advantage over IDE w/ BURNproof...but not enough to make it worth it. Especially at 12x or 16x...less than 10 minutes of a little system slow down...oh dear...how atrocious.

Anyhow, the 2 big advantages to SCSI are having many many devices and super fast disks....well I have my programs on one IBM 75GXP and my virtual memory on a 2nd one. That works out fast enough for me....and as for device count, well 4 on the mobo, and I have a PCI card...that's 8. I don't see myself needing anymore room.

 

[fow99]

IDE for my home pc coz I don't need SCSI even if I can afford it
(cough. I can not anyways.) SCSI at office with Sun station all around me.

 

IDE because I can get a 45G drive for $160. I do have a Plextor UltraPlex 40X Wide on my system only because I got it at a good price, along with the controller.

 

[Schola]

I have both, My main drive and buner + dvd are all scsi, while my storage drives are IDE.

Schola

 

[Compuguru]

IDE, SCSI isnt worth the money $$$ and i wouldnt use its few features over IDE anyway.

 

[Smbu]

I use a mix of both in my system. My CDRW drive, CDROM drive, and external zip drive are all scsi. My 2 hard drives and my DVDROM drive are IDE/ATAPI. SCSI hard drives just cost too much for me to justify buying them. SCSI optical drives don't cost that much more than ATAPI ones, though.

 

[NFS4]

<< but I can be burning CD to CD-RW and be playing a DVD and playing games and surfing the Web without having to worry about CPU utlizations >>


You see, now THAT'S where I have to put my foot down. When burning a CD with a 12-16x drive, it 5, 6 minutes tops! Is your time THAT important that you have to at the same time:

1) Burn a CD/CDRW
2) Play a DVD
3) Play a game (i.e. Quake 3)
4) Surf the web

ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Do you know how RIDICULOUS this sounds. Sure, you may be able to do it, BUT WHAT'S THE POINT. I know what it is...so you can justify the purchase of your high $$$ equipment.

Now at any time will YOU be doing all of those things at one time...NO.

 

[Adul]

i have a mix system. burner and cd-rom are on a scsi bus

 

[Adul]

NFS4, I in fact do multitask. I have play UT and have had to burn a CD for my brother. And since I don't feel like leaving the game, I just burn the CD and and go back to playing. (also could be playing tribes)

Also, I like the fact you can have multiple devices on a SCSi bus. 7 or 15 and only use one IRQ. And I have had setups where I have had 7 SCSi devices attached.

 

[Viperoni]

My SCSI subsystem, using the Diamond Fireport 40 Dual.

Channel A:
Seagate Elite 9.1gig HD

Channel B
Plex40x
Plex32x
Plex4x burner
Seagate Barracuda 2.1gig HD

IDE Raid:
Two HD's (still deciding because my Quantum KA just died)

Regular IDE:
CL 2x DVD (20x read)


Since burns take like 20mins, it's nice to be able to host a server (500mb swap file on the Elite 9.1), while burning from either the Barracuda or Plex's.
That way I can do anything while burning, as long as it doesn't touch the plex's/barracuda.
Which it never will, because Quake3 on hits the swap file (the Elite on it's own seperate channel) and the IDE raid.

 

[Viperoni]

Seagate Elite 9.1gig = $50
Plex40x = $65
Plex32x = $60
Plex4x burner $80
Seagate Barracuda 2.1gig HD = $15

Diamond Fireport 40 Dually SCSI card: $55

Total = $325

 

[CQuinn]

Hybrid, IDE internal , SCSI External

One thing I can do with my SCSI Castlewood ORB drive that I couldn't do
with the IDE one is: disconnect it from my home machine, pop it in
the briefcase, drive to work, hook it up to the work machine, and start
accessing the data I saved there. (Note I do not power off either machine;
if I suspect that it might cause conflicts I go into device manager and
do a refresh on the installed devices). That's hot plugability in action.

IDE has advantages in price, and acceptable performance for most users.
With the newer ATA standards, it meets the average requirements of the majority
of users. But there is really no need (or excuse) to bash SCSI over it,
as SCSI still offers functionality, adaptability, and performance
characteristics that even the latest IDE standard was never designed to apply.

There are times when speed and flexibility are more critical than capacity,
and those are the areas where SCSI still shines. Yes, it is more expensive,
but those drives are also (arguably) built to higher specs than their 7200
and 5400 RPM cousins. Consider that there have already been posters to
this (and other) forums saying they would pay a little extra premium for
the possiblility of 10000RPM IDE drives.

SerialATA is no more &quot;right around the corner&quot; than any other currently
hyped next generation technology. By that same whitepaper it will be
halfway thru 2002 before we see any large volume of devices supporting it.
And even then, the drives running on it will barely be able to reach the
level of ATA66 speed. Also, I don't see anything on that white paper that
addresses the growing desire for IDE RAID solutions.

 

[NFS4]

<< NFS4, I in fact do multitask. I have play UT and have had to burn a CD for my brother. And since I don't feel like leaving the game, I just burn the CD and and go back to playing. (also could be playing tribes) >>


Yeah, but you're also not playing a DVD while surfing the Net when burning your CD and playing Tribes

 

[MuffD]

K, I am a real big fan of SCSI. I have right now:
Plextor 12x10x32 scsi cdrw
Plextor 40X scsi
Seagate 18 gig cheetah 10,000 rpm hard drive
with 2 Maxtor 40 giggers.
In another system its all IDE.
I like scsi so much not just for the speed because actually some of the ide drives that i have beat out my scsi drives when I benchmark them (not the 10k drive though)but because of the ability to multi task while I am burning, editing videos, etc... With ide you can do it but you still have a little bit of slow down.
It's just one's opinion though. I hope they never stop making scsi drives. I will never buy an IDE burner for one, or use an IDE hard drive as my primary drive.
my .02

 

[dkozloski]

I standardized on SCSI many years ago when there was no such thing as a quality IDE drive of any size. Since then I haven't seen anything that would convince me to change. When cost is an issue I use previous generation or second-hand drives and controllers. The motherboards with integrated controllers are becoming tempting. IDE drives are still cost driven and quality is still being compromised for price. You can get bulletproof SCSI drives if you want to pay the price. Open up a corporate server and see what's being used when really big money is on the line.

 

[dcdomain]

I'm with NFS4, just not worth it. My roommate has a SCSI computer and he never upgrades cuz it'll cost him a fortune. Poor soul...

 

[Tako]

I have a mixed system as well. See my rig in my sig. (like that rhyme )

I bought my SCSI components over a year ago. For OS, I have a 18gig 10K drive which I got a good deal on it ($275 shipped). A 2940UW SCSI card, which I bought a used one off the FS forum for $65 with cables. Bought a factory refurbed Plextor 40 UW drive and a 4x2x20 drive at a great price as well.

However, I realized I quickly ran out of HDD space.

So 2 months ago I bought a 30gig Quantum 7200RPM ATA drive from buy.com at $92. It's been working great and more than fast enough for general storage, and surely the value cannot be beat on these IDE devices. Recently, I just ran out of disk space again so I ordered two of those IBM 75 GXP 45 giggers at $145 each! Wow! I wish I had that kind of space for my SCSI without burning a hole in my pocket. I also believe that most IDE drives today are reasonably reliable compared to SCSI disks under normal use [EDIT: .....compared to IDE HDD's of yesteryears].

But ya, I look forward to what those Serial ATA's can do in real life. We shall see....


Tako_chu

 

[Rent]

I am slowly turning my system into a complete SCSI system. Why? Speed in general. I also use SCSI because it doesn't have the limits of IDE. I like having 3 CD/DVD rom devices on one card(2 per channel on IDE). I also like being able to actually do other things while I'm burning CDs... even with burnproof on IDE CDRWs, your still going to run a higher risk of something actually going wrong with the burn if you are browsing the internet or chatting or whatever when your using IDE.

Heres what I have right now -
SiiG AP-40
Pioneer 6x DVD 303S
HP 9200i 8x4x32x CDRW
Plextor UltraPlex Wide 40x CDRom

And I'll be getting a 18 or 35gb 10k SCSI harddrive eventually. I was against making my system a mixed IDE/SCSI system at first, but when I saw that the bottleneck wasn't bad, I got used to it and now I just keep wanting to buy more SCSI stuff!

I'll admit right off, IDE is a much better bang for the buck, but this is like deciding between buying a Corvette and a Porsche. They're both nice, but the Porsche is more exotic (and a little faster too! )

 

[tjdavis1138]

All ide here. SCSI is too much money.

 

[NFS4]

<< You talk of Price performance then you mention Nice Video Cards..like the Geforce2 Ultra? a $300.00+ Video card top play Kiddie Games? Now to me that's a waste >>


And how many people here have Ultras?? Not many b/c we have common sense not to buy expensive stuff like that Radeon, GTS, 5500's, and MX's do just fine. It's funny how you cut off the part of the quote mentioning an upgraded CPU along with that vid card upgrade:Q

And this &quot;kiddie&quot; gamer thing that you keep mentioning is really not appropriate. A good many of the people on this board game and frame rate is king. Look at all the CS peeps running around here. &quot;Kiddie gamers&quot; are the ones pushing the market for faster CPU's and video cards. I don't know of many biz people that have a use for an NV20 or 1.2GHz Athlon in their daily work.

 

[Rent]

Oh and NFS4 - If you took the money you spend on your iPaq then you could have some nice SCSI stuff

 

[NFS4]

<< Oh and NFS4 - If you took the money you spend on your iPaq then you could have some nice SCSI stuff >>


Bah, my iPAQ serves it purpose and serves it well. If I had spent all my money on SCSI, I'd be out of a PDA (which I find essential) and more than the $500 cost of the iPAQ. SCSI just ain't worth it for the regular consumer. For enterprise yes.

 

[Niege]

Mix. Older scanner is a SCSI card one, everything else IDE. I don't need to chain a lot of devices yet, and the cost of all SCSI isn't worth it to me, I'd rather put the $$ elsewhere in the rig.