SCSI + IDE possible in PC?

unkel

Was toying with the idea to get a PCI SCSI card and a fast (15000rpm) SCSI drive, either 18GB or 36GB if I could get this for a reasonable price. I would use this drive as my master and keep my current IDE drive as a slave. Thought this would boost the overall performance of my rig.

Is this possible? Anyone with any experience on having SCSI + IDE? Would this boost speed?

Spunj

Yep its possible, I recently set up a machine in work with an IDE raid card with 4 RAID-5 disks and and a SCSI raid card with 3 RAID-5 16000rpm's. Only difference was that I kept one IDE to boot off also and set windows up on it and left the RAID Drives free.

Should be no problem to boot off the SCSI disk tho (RAID arrays show up as a single disk anyways so should be same difference with a single drive).

You will see a speed increase alright but that 40 GB is golddust so you may be better off leaving windows on the IDE and putting selected apps on the SCSI and possibly the pagie file too. This has the added benifit of keeping the pagefile on a seperate drive to windows for even better performance.

Matt Simis

In regards to buying SCSI drives, I recently got an Atlas III 10K RPM 68Pin 73GB model from Ebay for $200 plus shipping. Over €400 here typically.

That was a "Buy it now price", if you want to bid on other drives you may get them cheaper, but I wanted it now!

Much better range and prices on SCSI Controller cards (aka HBAs) on EBay than any Euro retailer too.



Matt

Gerry

Originally posted by Spunj

You will see a speed increase alright but that 40 GB is golddust so you may be better off leaving windows on the IDE and putting selected apps on the SCSI and possibly the pagie file too. This has the added benifit of keeping the pagefile on a seperate drive to windows for even better performance.

Surely put the things which will be accessed most often on the scsi? In my estimation this will include windows, unless you never reboot and have bags of ram.

sutty

Just a little bit of experance I've had with the two on the one system.

If the IDE controler is on the montherboard. The ID drive will always show up as the frist drive on the system. (the C: drive) On my server I take out the IDE drive and install onto the SCSI when ever I need to install a new OS. Then once the install is compleat I add the IDE one back in

What Gerry said is right, If you want a fast system (able access OS files and respond faster with cashed programs and files) You should install the OS onto the SCSI drive. I'd be more inclined to use the IDE for file storage of large amounts.

Spunj

It all depends on what you are going to be using it for. The SCSI drive wont offer a whole lot more speed over an IDE for normal windows operation (especially if the paging file is on the SCSI). Its more suited to longer running, sustained reads or writes for any appreciable performance gains. When I benchmarked various configs here before I built the aformentioned machine, having the OS on SCSI offered little to no real performance gains versus the price you are paying for each GB.

This was a buiness server tho, if you are just doing normal usage and have no real plan for the SCSI, then stick windows on it and work away, just don't expect any magically fast speed increases in day to day running.

SouperComputer

ive been running 2 36GB Cheetahs with an IDE drive. No problems.

I found that the SCSI was a much more plesureable experience, due to a fsater access time i guess. Bootup is sweet, generally speaking the os is a little nippier to. Also if you are coping stuff from one SCSI to another, it whips along. The puter will be easier to bare when the drive is fragmented too.

What makes it more impressive is that i was using on old ultra 1 adaptor!

DEFO put he OS on the SCSI.

make sure you get a card with a bootable BIOS also.

I have a 10K 36Gb cheetah if you are interested, PM with an offer


In short, if you can do it, go for it, you wont be dissapointed!

po0k

This is a nice and opportune topic...

We're currently mulling in college over how to spend a bit of cash on our box.
The ide drives in it atm have been spinning for the last ~2 years and we're getting worried.
Look at a mix of the following:
Putting the core system on 3x 36.5Gig (10k-15k)SCSIs in RAID5 (=> ~70gigs usable), /home on a RAID5 array of 4-6 ATA-133 ide discs (7200rpm), whole rig on RAID5 of s-ATA, or a combination of the above.

At the moment I don't like the idea of putting sATA in the box, I don't think it's matured enough yet, plus we're only on 10Mbit pipe to the rest of teh college.
ATA-133 should be fine.
Any and all of the above possibilities require the purchase, installation and configuration of at least 1 if not 2 interface cards.



Just by-the-by.....would fibre-channel be viable/a complete waste of cash?
I've only got a rough idea of the real-world usage of it.

SouperComputer

u can run 15 drives on most SCSI cards, so you should only need one adaptor

Fibre is not a good idea, unless you really need the distance between points, get it DIRT cheap and are willing to sacrifce a little speed. Youll have to get the card which is VERY expensive plus a rack to run em in!

SATA I havnt used yet, but SCSI is tried and tested over 15years or so, go SCSI I think.

po0k

u can run 15 drives on most SCSI cards, so you should only need one adaptor

I know.
Yo're missing the point.
We might be making a mix (which is what this topic is about) of SCSI (for system) and ATA/sATA (for /home).
We simply don't have the money or the need to go all-out scsi atm. Nor do we have the bandwidth on thelan to take advantage of it (and internal machine side file jobs wont be affected a whole lot).

Also, how would you sacrifice a little speed with fibre channel?
isn't it in the multi-gigabit speed range?

We more then likely will end up buying the 3x raid5 scsi array simply cos we can afford that at least at the moment and /home isn't as vital as the system core.
A DVD writer / scsi tape deck might be an idea too for backups.