Serial ATA Vs. SCSI Ultra 160, what's better ?
 

I'm in a situation here, I'm picking up some parts for my new computer, but I'm in a dilema. I'm not the most knowledgable about hard drive interfaces, so I'm kinda stuck.

I'm gonna be buying one of the new PCI exress motherboards when they come out in another couple of weeks, so I'm buying the other parts that I'll need rite now to be ready.

I'd like to get a nice 146.8-gig drive, which is SCSI Ultra320 68pin but all of the SCSI card that are Ultra 320 are PCI-X cards, which on the couple of motherboards that I'm looking at, they don't have that port. I checked around and found that the hard drive would work on an Ultra 160 PCI SCSI, however, wouldn't that hamper it's performance a bit ???

The new motherboard that I'm checking out has Serial ATA which is supposed to be decent, HOWEVER, the only 10,000 RPM drives they have that are Serial ATA are only 74-gigs which is kinda small. There are some good sized 7,200 RPM drives that have the Serial ATA interface, but they're only 7,200 RPM.

Anyways, my question is, what would you say is the best route to go, would the 10,000 RPM drive running on an Ultra 160 SCSI card still be faster than a 7,200 RPM running on a Serial ATA port ? Money isn't a matter here, I know that it's a LOT cheaper to go with a 7,200 rpm drive, but this is my new system and I want performance :)

i sense you have a serious need for speed

SCSI outperforms no question and is way more reliable.... If money is no matter then go for the best...

umm easy question to answer
the SCSI Ultra 160

Just like you, I love high performance parts. SCSI wins HANDS down, pretty much always. I have serial ata 10k rpm myself, but I know scsi is still faster.

Ok great, thanks for all of the quick comments guys, I appreciate them. I guess that I'll go for the SCSI Ultra 160 then :)

I'm planning on popping in the latest motherboard (AA7 DuraMAX or GA-8ANXP-D), plus 2-gigs or DDR2 PC-4200 ram, 3.8 P4 Alderwood processor, X800 XT PCI-Epress video card, Double layer DVD burner, it's gonna ROCK :)

slick.... this is what I am sporting and it is the shit, forget about the ATA....

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/...81,538,00.html

i am fine with 73 gigs as I do not use a lot of space.

SCSI is way faster and far more reliable.

Go for some 15k rpm drives while you're at it :thumbsup

Thanks for the head's up, taht does look nice, but for me, I'd really like to have bigger than the 73-gigs, I have 80 now and I have a lot of games and stuff on here, so that fills up fast and with the newer games coming out, they take up more and more space when you install them.

Here's what I'm looking at not -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...111-131&depa=0

I'm having troubles even trying to find a SCSI Ultra 160 PCI card, those are tough to find, does anyone know of any models that AREN'T PCI-X ???

Thanks for the comments :)

I'd love got a 15K RPM drive, but the biggest that I see are 73-gigs and cost nearly the same price as the 146-gig 10K rpm drives, so I'll go the 10K rpm path :)

Would this PCI SCSI card -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-127&depa=0

Work with this hard drive -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...111-131&depa=0

SCSI is all new to me, it's a bitch to find an Ultra160 PCI (NOT PCI-E) SCSI card that'd work.

The hard drive is SCSI Ultra320 68pin, but the card that I found above says that it works for 1x 68-pin for LVD SCSI, what the hell is LVD SCSI, in other words, that won't work ??? I also found another card that says that it works with wide 68-pin, but I'm assuming that's something different than just Ultra320 68-pin.

If someone could lead me to a PCI SCSI card that'd work that drive, I'd GREATLY appreciate it.

SCSI is faster but

1) is louder

2) is more expensive


Serial ATA is fast (no as fast as SCSI) but a lot faster then IDE. The downside of Serial ATA is that you can only have 2 drives per channel on your system so it's like IDE. Unless you want to have a RAID 5 system spanning 4+ drives on your computer I would suggest getting Serial ATA. It's less noisy, run less hot and it's easier on your wallet and you will get some respectable throughput.

Actually I'm only planning on having the one drive for now, I really don't need to RAID it, I just want the speed :)

Still Serial-ATA. It's cheaper, less noisy and much less heat then SCSI drive.

Here's a good read on the topic: http://www.mycableshop.com/atavsscsi1.html

This is what I've heard, not sure if it's all 100% true:

- IDE uses CPU system resources whereas SCSI does not
- SCSI can multi-task better then IDE
- If you're using a database then SCSI is better
- SCSI Raid is much better... an IDE RAID card isn't hot-swapable... plus IDE RAID are all aftermarket and you can't buy name-brand servers with IDE RAID
- Software RAID sucks ass so don't try that with IDE
- SCSI can be faster (up to 15k, even faster in some cases)

I've seen people webhost with IDE and SCSI and really don't think you can tell a big difference if you're just pushing Apache...

One thing you can't argue about is the RPM of IDE vs SCSI... so if you're basing on faster drives and you have the cash, go SCSI

- IDE uses CPU system resources whereas SCSI does not

True. Although you will only see it in extreme cases it is true. If you have 100,000 small files and you need to copy them there will be some CPU overhead. If you do the same thing with SCSI the overhead will be processed on the SCSI card.

- SCSI can multi-task better then IDE

Again true. This is because all SCSI disc related tasks are computed on/storred on/supervised by the SCSI card and not by the CPU.

- If you're using a database then SCSI is better

Again true. SCSI scales better and is faster with less overhead (again the SCSI card plays a big role here also).

- SCSI Raid is much better... an IDE RAID card isn't hot-swapable... plus IDE RAID are all aftermarket and you can't buy name-brand servers with IDE RAID

I think Dell might sell some IDE RAID towers. Look under the Small Office / Home Office section. I could be wrong though. IDE RAIDS are ok but in a production enviornment I would definately use SCSI. Like you said SCSI drives are hotswappable and IDE drives are not.


- Software RAID sucks ass so don't try that with IDE

Not necessarily. It all depends on what RAID level you are using. On my video editing maching I have two 80GB (with 8MB cache) Seagate 7500RPM drives configured into a RAID 0 (stripping) configuration. Under Windows I can get 60 MB/s transfer rates but under Linux on the same box I was able to get 90MB/s transfer rates. Soft IDE RAID are good if you only have two drives (one on each primary IDE channel) but again you are limited to having two drives because IDE only supports 4 devices.


- SCSI can be faster (up to 15k, even faster in some cases)

True

I've seen people webhost with IDE and SCSI and really don't think you can tell a big difference if you're just pushing Apache...

Again true. If you are a normal computer user you do absolutely not need SCSI. SCSI was developed for hotswapability and maximum throughput of LARGE quantities of data. Serving webpages, opening notepad, playing music, etc... you have no reason to use SCSI. SCSI will benefit you if you are doing something disc intensive like searching though a database, editing movies, etc...

One thing you can't argue about is the RPM of IDE vs SCSI... so if you're basing on faster drives and you have the cash, go SCSI

If you have massive amounts of cash burning through your pockets I would say go for the SCSI but I think your money would be better spent on getting fast Serial ATA drives, more RAM or an extra processor instead.

Have an older barracuda drive 7200 rpm, its alot "burlier" than a ata drive, louder, hotter, more reliable, same form factor but about an inch fatter almost, if price is not a problem, then scsi all the way. There are adaptec ultra 360 controller cards that will work for you, probebly find one off ebay the easiest.

However my next pc is going to have a built in sata RAID circuitry and a few nice sata drives, i don't need to go scsi 360 personally, but if money was no object i'd go the scsi route, their very nice!

But to me having a few drives in a stripe set (RAID 0) is the most important and a few sata drives will be great and with a built in RAID controller i'll have an extra PCI slot which is also important.

I just recently bought a new computer.
I asked around in several shops so I could put together the best and most reliable computer.
Seems that many stores removed the SATA discs from their inventory because they got too many problems with bad harddrives, I talked to one that got around 20% of the discs returned because of errors.
If you want speed and wish to save some $ but doesn't care when your computer crash then go for SATA, else go with SCSI.
If it is too noisy get a sound isolated tower or play loud music when you use the computer :thumbsup

Go serial ata and just get 2 drives.

you sure such setup won't melt down ?

I've got 6 Maxtor LVD drives in my box. They're great
http://www.maxtor.com/en/products/scsi/atlas_15k/
http://www.maxtor.com/en/products/sc.../atlas_10k_iv/

had a lot of problems with IBM. Four drives faile after only 1 1/2 years. And IBM drives heat up like crazy.

Maxtor is very silent and doesn't have the heat problem.

If you buy new equipment then go for U320. You can plug all SCSI stuff there and if you use a lot of HDs (>3-4) then your throughput will be always amazing). But you can use 320 drives on a 160 card as well.

Ha ha ha, nope, here's my case here, 7 fans which should give kick ass airflow -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...133-108&depa=0

Plus I'm gonna buy a hard drive cooler to keep that cooler, so I should be golden :)

I'm kinda torn though, I'm actually considering the 73-gig 10,000 RPM Serial ATA drive because I CAN'T find any PCI (NOT PCI-X) card that'll run the drive. I know that there's NO PCI SCSI cards that can handle the Ultra320 (of course), but an Ultra160 PCI card will do the trick.

If anyone knows of a card that'd work, please let me know.

Would this PCI SCSI card -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-127&depa=0

Work with this hard drive -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...111-131&depa=0

SCSI is all new to me, it's a bitch to find an Ultra160 PCI (NOT PCI-E) SCSI card that'd work.

The hard drive is SCSI Ultra320 68pin, but the card that I found above says that it works for 1x 68-pin for LVD SCSI, what the hell is LVD SCSI, in other words, that won't work ??? I also found another card that says that it works with ultra wide 68-pin, but I'm assuming that's something different than just Ultra320 68-pin.

If money is no issue get a mother board with pci-x or get a perc2 raid card and hot swappable scsi drives

Yeah SCSI would be the clear choice if you have a real need for fast disk access.

Thats how I have my computer setup.. I have one small scsi drive (36 GB 15,000 rpm) that I use to store programs, and the OS on, and a 160GB data drive that is just a standard IDE 7200 rpm.

Makes a fairly large difference..

SCSI started with the 'narrow' bus (50 pins), after that the 'wide' bus got used (68 pins or 80 pins for SCA-2). The actual bus system is LVD. It is used by all Ultra3 SCSI devices. U160 and and U320 are Ultra3 SCSI and use both the LVD bus technology

U160 = data transfers 160 megabytes per second
U320 = data transfers 320 megabytes per second = Fast 160

What does that mean? You can mix all stuff. You can use a U160 adapter together with a U320 drive or vice versa.

And the 29160 is a nice controller. Old but still good
Seagate drives.... hmm, I had bad experiences with them as well. Therefore I avoid them

http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage...718/index.html
check that link. And as said, I use 6 Maxtor Atlas IV and I love them

unless your buying seperate fans for that case, 7 are worthless. The fans that come stock with almost anycase, suck ass cause they dont push enough air thru. To top that off, its a big huge steel case, which even with 7 fans, is not gonna get rid of the heat very well....

If $$ Is not an issue, why not get a Lian Li ALUMINUM case, or go for a watercooling setup?

PC cooling? it's all about airflow ... fans in the back (near CPU) should exhaust hot air... fans in front of case.. should intake cool air.

Try not to have any dead pockets in your case... to help, get round-IDE/SCSI cables ...

Very highly recommended to get an Aluminum case... dissipates heat quicker.. not to mention about 2x lighter (easier to move around if needed).

money's not an issue? and want performance? ... instead of just one scsi HD ... get 2 and Raid-0 them.. (striping) ...

and then.. u can even think about dual P4 xeon CPUs ...

good luck on a beast of a machine :thumbsup

Stramm is right. I can't believe I forgot about Ultra-320 SCSI. If you want to go absolutely nuts, get a 15k rpm U320 SCSI. Or, if you want the best in the world, go with fibre channel hard drives, usually reserved for enterprise servers/NAS, just prepare to go bankrupt for those. :winkwink: