From: Edwards, Benjamin () (Benjamin.Edwards at domain DIGIFONE.COM)
Date: Mon 10 May 1999 - 15:15:31 IST
It is not the Specks of SCSI vs. IDE (We are talking about UltraDMA here I
assume) which are of most relevance it is the architecture. IDE is built
into the motherboard and uses its resources, SCSI on the other hand is a
encapsulated interface (i.e. it works independently or the motherboard).
This means that if there is a lot of disk I/O going through your system and
you are using IDE the overall performance of the box will suffer a lot more
than with SCSI. The other thing to consider is the speck of the disks.
Just because you are using a superior interface douse not mean that the
drive hardware is fully utilising it. For example there was a time when IBM
(standard DMA) drives were faster than some ultraDMA drives as IBM had fully
utilised the band-width from DMA and the others were just shoving UltraDMA
interfaces in as a marketing thing.
The thing to look for as far as disk performance is concerned is spin speed.
The problem with looking at data transfer rates is that it is specified is
various different ways so it is often difficult to make a comparison.
Lastly as SCSI is more isolated from the motherboard it is more stable.
In case anyone was wondering how I know so much about this it is because I
have built Video Editing Boxes. For these both system performance and
streaming disk transfer (i.e. not burst) are both crucial.
Hope this helps,
Ben
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Desbonnet [SMTP:joe at domain local.ie]
> Sent: Friday, May 07, 1999 3:58 PM
> To: ilug at domain linux.ie
> Subject: [ILUG] SCSI vs modern IDE
>
> Any comments on SCSI vs modern IDE drives under Linux. I need to spec a
> machine that will act as a development and X application server with about
> 3
> - 5 old X workstations as clients. The server will have loads of RAM - a
> least 512MB and disk usage will not be massive. Considering the price
> difference and the fact that there will be oodles of RAM for caching will
> SCSI make any real difference? I presume IDE access is fully bus mastered
> these days?
>
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