SCSI vs. RAID

[tyremanb]

im about to upgrade my system, and im interested in getting as fast a hard drive as economically possible.

the two options that i was thinking of were either scsi, which i know to be quite expensive.

the other is something that i have only just heard of, and it involves using a RAID controller to have two iderntical hard drives, but use them so the data is cloned. in theory if one hard drive becomes maxed out, the other takes other.

does ne1 know what sort of RAID mode that is, whether it will work, and which will be the best value for money speed?

thanks.

[Scuba]

In Raid Level '0' the data is split on two (Or moe) hard drives so in teory the read/Write speed is the speed of one drive X No. of drives in the Raid.

It work perfect in SCSI but my personal test didnt show a very good improvments using IDE drives.

there are new IDE Raid cards on the market that supposed to be faster thow.

[shadow1]

There are several raid configs that stripe volumes over drives to improve speed. If it's in your budget choose scsi as it works faster with or without raid.

[Scuba]

On my new system i chose to go with IDE for the system.
It's not slower, and so much cheap.
Normaly people put a 8G or 9G SCSI system drive since it's so expencive. I used a 30G IBM 75GXP on UDMA66 and a second one 75G on the same channel as primery slave for backup and storage. Also a IDE ATAPI CDROM for system install and such. much more simple then install on SCSI.

My system work Gr8 and i am not sory for any thing. If you ask me, for the system - IDE is the way to go. As stand alone SCSI is not much faster then IDE and the only reason SCSI is faster is since they make them running in 10K and 15K Rpm.

[tyremanb]

i think that i will stick to faithful IDE drives, as i have absolutely no experience in scsi. also, i have to consider the price of the controller card as well <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

if i get a ata100 complient drive, with ata66/100 complient board, is there ne jumpers or dip switches, or a setting in the bios to change to make it run at 100?

thanks for all the other help btw.

[Scuba]

On the IDE Raid card there not supposed to be any jumpers or Dip switchs - since they all supposed to be Plug and Prey.

some of the Hard Drives are shiped as UDMA66 even thow they support 100. to change this you will need a special program from the drive maker. You will probably not see this.

I suggest that you look at Promise web site. they make some of the best IDE Raid controllers in the market ( WWW.promise.com )

[Wildman6971]

I have a Western Digital 40 GB ATA 100, 7200 RPM. Would recommend it. Very inexpensive for that kind of drive, $125 - $150. if you shop around for one.

[Scuba]

But if you want speed get the IBM 60GXP (20,40,60)G

[tyremanb]

ive seen some western digis (ata 100, 7200) at a good price. its just that ive never seen the quality b4. does ne1 have ne experience with WDs?

[tyremanb]

also, what do ppl think of the GA-6RXB by gigabyte?
http://www.giga-byte.com/products/6rxb.htm

[Scuba]

1. IMHO WD is the wors Hard drive in existance.
2. It's a nice main board but dont expect too much from the on board Raid controller.
If you realy want performances you will have to use sonthing like the Promise SuperTrack100.

[tyremanb]

i think that ill go for fujis, cos i know that they make good drives (well, all my experiences with them are good). thanks for the help every1 <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">

[crahak]

You can get promise, Iwill, or a lot better but more expensive Adaptec IDE RAID controllers they work not too bad. i personnaly use 3 WD 40Gb ATA100 7200rpm 2mb buffer in RAID0 (stripping) on a promise controller. So far, so good :-) The only way to beat this kind of speed is buying SCSI160, SCSI RAID controllers... ... ... SCSI's a weird thing. Anyway, that's my opinion. Good luck anyway! :-)

[flyguy42]

IDE Raid setups are a waste of time... I BARELY got a performance increase... I went out and spent a few more bucks, got a cheap SCSI card and a 15K SCSI drive... the diffrence is night and day.

[Scuba]

Promise make some decent IDE Raid controlers.
I dont talk about this 4 drives 2 channels that are based on a normal IDE controller.
they have somthing Called SuperTrack100.
It uses up to 6 drives on independent channels and dedicated processor to controll all this ****.
enable you to get the real speed increase when you add more drives.
I am going to order it for my next setup.

All in all - I still love my U160 Dual channel W/4 Seagate Cheetha 15K Rpm. <IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">