Should I...

[kannibul]

My system consists of:

Athlon XP 2100 (1.733GHz)
1GB 266MHz DDR Kingston RAM
SB Live 5.1
M-Audio Delta 44
MSI G-force 4 Ti 4600
MSI KT4V-L (using onboard Lan)
IBM Deskstar 120GXP (80GB model)
usual other crap (floppy, burner...)

I have been considering getting an Adaptec 2100s RAID contoller (Ultra 160), along with two 36GB U160 SCSI drives. (Probably Atlas III 10K's) and doing RAID-0.

Am I nuts to spend about $700 on this, or should I look at getting U320 for the card for "insurance".

The Adaptec 2100s card is the only 32bit/33MHz RAID card adaptec offers. The U320 cards are all 64bit, and i can't remember if you can use them in 32bit PCI slots or not. (I know, they would operate @ 32bit, not 64...)

I use this box for daily crap, but also for gaming and recording music.

Also, while i have some people attention, does the onboard LAN on my board uses CPU cycles or is it seperate. It is listed as VIA LAN device.

Anyhow, should I?

[DocPC]

64 bit card will work in a 32 bit PCI slot........

[kannibul]

Originally posted by DocPC
64 bit card will work in a 32 bit PCI slot........

I couldn't remember if they would or not. I'm pretty sure I put a gigabit over copper nic that was 64 bit into a 32bit slot.

I also wanted to check due to it being a controller card, if it mattered.

[DocPC]

On the cheapie servers I build (low-budget customers) , I put a 2110s or 3110s in the 32 bit PCI and it works fine.

Just a bit slower.

[kannibul]

Originally posted by DocPC
On the cheapie servers I build (low-budget customers) , I put a 2110s or 3110s in the 32 bit PCI and it works fine.

Just a bit slower.

Do you think it would be worth the $700 I'm probably going to spend? I just hope I won't buy just becuase I want it, more than I might need it.
ATA Raid isn't my idea of logical.

Would you say that a 64bit U320 card in a 32bit slot is equal to a U160 in a 32 bit slot? Faster/slower?

More or less, I want to figure where the bottle neck would be. The PCI interface, or the SCSI interface.

I think 32bit PCI is 264MB/sec, so, I guess a U320 card would be capped at 80% that (theory is always higher than actual)

hmm...

[Gabriel]

quite of the topic, but - if you've got spare 700$. you can always donate them to a good cause...
Your computer (by Specs) has nothing wrong with it.
If you insist on Buying something to your computer - make it worth - a good display for instance.

Cheers,
Gabriel

[kannibul]

Originally posted by Gabriel
quite of the topic, but - if you've got spare 700$. you can always donate them to a good cause...
Your computer (by Specs) has nothing wrong with it.
If you insist on Buying something to your computer - make it worth - a good display for instance.

Cheers,
Gabriel

Thanks - I've already got a 19" viewsonic.

LCD would be pretty nice, less noise in my recordings due to my guitar picking up the emissions from the CRT...but, for gaming, an LCD monitor would suck - I guess.

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by kannibul
Do you think it would be worth the $700 I'm probably going to spend? I just hope I won't buy just becuase I want it, more than I might need it.
ATA Raid isn't my idea of logical.

Would you say that a 64bit U320 card in a 32bit slot is equal to a U160 in a 32 bit slot? Faster/slower?

More or less, I want to figure where the bottle neck would be. The PCI interface, or the SCSI interface.

I think 32bit PCI is 264MB/sec, so, I guess a U320 card would be capped at 80% that (theory is always higher than actual)

hmm...

The question you need to ask, will a 64 bit, U320 run at 320 mbps in a 32 bit slot, or not; or is it just slower onto the MoBo bus even though the drive throughput is true? The next question: is it worth the extra money to get drives that run at that spec, or are you dead set on the 160's? The answer to the first question I don't know. But if the answer to the second question is that you want to go with the slower drives, even if the answer to question 1 is yes, then you are wasting your money to go with the 2200S. The 2100S can be found for well below $400 on the web, and will work with the max to which you intend to use it.

If you intentions are to look ahead, think about this, what is next after U320? If you intend to use this rig for the next two years, then U320 will be cheap by then, and something else, (dare I say 640) will be the next great thing, and you should save all of your money for that!

[craigmodius]

If it was me I'd wait considering Western Digital just came out with a 10,000 rpm IDE hdd

It's a little on the small side at 36gb, but at the rate things are going it will be up to size and down in price in no time I would think.

Maximum PC has a good review and benchmarks of the WD360gd versus the IBM180gxp here if you want to compare it to something similar to what you got.

[Gollo]

You complain about the noise that your monitor mixes into your recording can you imagine 2 10k scsi's running in that box WITH the monitor? How much of a performance boost are you expecting and is it worth the 700 bucks your gonna throw down?

[kannibul]

Originally posted by Gollo
You complain about the noise that your monitor mixes into your recording can you imagine 2 10k scsi's running in that box WITH the monitor? How much of a performance boost are you expecting and is it worth the 700 bucks your gonna throw down?

I'm talking about EMI radiation from the monitor, not the noise level.
My mic placement (shure sm-57) is placed in such a way that my computer itself can not be heard, dispite having an AMD system with 4 case fans, 2 P/S fans, the fan on the GF4, and a CPU fan that spins @ 6000+ RPM.
The computer isn't heard, the monitor is, since it hums through the pickups.

[kannibul]

Originally posted by Gollo
You complain about the noise that your monitor mixes into your recording can you imagine 2 10k scsi's running in that box WITH the monitor? How much of a performance boost are you expecting and is it worth the 700 bucks your gonna throw down?

RAID 0, U160 (maybe U320 if I canget it cheap enough) = well over 2x performance increase over ATA-100 IBM IDE drive.

That's my goal anyway...

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by craigmodius
If it was me I'd wait considering Western Digital just came out with a 10,000 rpm IDE hdd

It's a little on the small side at 36gb, but at the rate things are going it will be up to size and down in price in no time I would think.

Maximum PC has a good review and benchmarks of the WD360gd versus the IBM180gxp here if you want to compare it to something similar to what you got.

The difference between IDE and SCSI is not just the RPM’s or the MBPS (100/133 and 160 respectively), but in the seek time, and overall performance. SCSI even at U160 is still many times faster than IDE when you compare the overall performance gains …average seek on IDE is between 8 and 10 ms, where some of the 10k SCSI drives are at 4.7 ms…

But, that Serial ATA drive is pretty quick! 5.2ms is quite fast! I gotta’ say it’s lookin’ good! What about support up to RAID 5 for SATA? What are the costs…~~anyone?

[kannibul]

Originally posted by Ya_know
The difference between IDE and SCSI is not just the RPM’s or the MBPS (100/133 and 160 respectively), but in the seek time, and overall performance. SCSI even at U160 is still many times faster than IDE when you compare the overall performance gains …average seek on IDE is between 8 and 10 ms, where some of the 10k SCSI drives are at 4.7 ms…

But, that Serial ATA drive is pretty quick! 5.2ms is quite fast! I gotta’ say it’s lookin’ good! What about support up to RAID 5 for SATA? What are the costs…~~anyone?

I think it balances out cost wise in the end, comparing SATA + U160. You pay a little less, you get a little less performance.