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Which scsi adapter and hardrive to get?

jor888

Member
I want to get a scsi hardrive with around 5ms seek time for home computer not looking ot raid or add more scsi HD later and I get confuse about all these scsi1 scsi2 scsi3 ultra wide scsi and u160 adapters. If I only want to get 1 scsi hardrive then there is no need to get u160 since it can never go up to 160mb/sec right? Thx for ur advice.
 
It really depends on how much you want to spend and the size of the hard drives you want. If you're willing to spend the money I would definately get one of the 10k rpm drives. Either the seagate cheetahs or the quantum atlas 10k II.
If you're going to get only one harddrive than an ultra2 adapter will be good enough.
 
I have Tekram DC390-U2W - think u can get for ~$120 now (I paid $165 couple yrs ago)

Linkage - comes w/ all the cables & terminators you'll ever need. Will also let u run non-LVD devices (like CDROMs & burners) without affecting/degrading (devices on) the LVD bus (HDDs).

I like a lot - easy to recommend.

I have IBM Ultrastars. Can get a 9GB 36LZX for US$219 at Hypermicro. Mention Overclockers.com & get free shipping.

I also heard the Quantum is good, and is offering a rebate, but I've never used a Quantum. Cheetah is the most repected name in SCSI HDDs, but they typically come at a premium price.
 
i second that dc-390u2w however if your going with siply one scsi hd and you arnt concerned with random burst speed, then the 390f is the way to go its about 50 dollars cheaper then the dc-390u2w and the only real difrences are that its max transfer rate is 40 mbs as oposed to the 80 of the u2w also it still has a 50 pin internal conector as well as the 68 pin internal and external so that you can add a scsi cd-rw or a scanner later. either one will save you alot of cash over an adeptek card and both are very nice cards i presonaly run the u2w but used to run the 390f. as far as the hd, to get those kind of seek times look for a10 seagate or WD, your real world options will be more like 4.2 4.6 5.2 or 5.6 ms seek times. the 5.6 10 seagate that i run when latency is factored in averages about 8.6ms seek times thats compared to the average 13 ms seek times of 8.5ms ide hd's with latency factored in. there are some 15k 3.2 ms seagate drives i *think*. Id suggest you go with the Western Digital 10k drives they can be had for somewhere in the 180 dollar range and offer comprable preformance to the older 10 seagate drives.
 
Although there is nothing wrong with the WD drives, I would recommend staying away from them as WD stopped making SCSI drives a while ago so support will probably be poor. If for whatever reason the drive dies, you may not be able to get a replacement.
 
I have 2 WD drive with 5.2 seek time. They are cheap and worked very well for me. But if you are looking for performance, go with the seagate X15 drives that with 15k rpm and ~3.something seektime. Quantum Atlas 10k II are good too. It is always good to get the lastest standard, as long as they are not too expansive. You will always want to expand later, and I agree with all previous post, Tekram are great card. Go to hypermicro.com for all your SCSI need, they are one good site for scsi stuff
 
I recommend getting a U160 HD and a U160 SCSI card, especially for future upgradability. The Adaptec 29160 and a Seagate Cheatah 18XL 10,000 rpm HD or the new Seagate Cheatah X15 are both great drives. I am using 3 Cheatah 18XL's myself in RAID 0 with an Adaptec 2100S SCSI RAID card, the drives are very fast and reliable, and the SCSI RAID card is very stable and easy to configure, and affordable.
 
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