demoted scsi..

[kendogg]

I had a 36GB LVD drive 10K rpms along with an adaptec 29160 U160 under winxp. I had the drive partioned 10GB & 26GB. Considering this was my first experience with scsi peripherals it did not awe me in anyway. So I switched back to IDE (maxtor 60GB D740x-6L). This drive runs much quieter/cooler than the scsi monster. Performance seems to be similar if not the same..

 

[mastertech01]

Lots of people make the mistake of expecting some awesome drive performance, maybe even doubling the performance of thier state of the art IDE drives. SCSI has its place, and its characteristics and buss flexibility are not for the average PC user.

 

[lozina]

Agreed. SCSI is definitely not for the average user. Especially if you're only using one hard drive... SCSI is really designed for arrays including many devices all of which run off the SCSI CPU instead of tapping the system CPU.

 

[rockhard]

demoted scsi..

demoted IDE

When i try to unrar upwards of 50 rar files of an archive from one HD to a folder on same HD plus burn CD off .bin file off same HD and also drag an archive off network storage to same HD IDE is a system crippler
Now with my SCSI drives i can just carry on with no system bog down and save loads of wasted time ive had with IDE doing the waiting game - very nice
I feel SCSI does have a place if you know WHY you need

 

[lozina]

This is quite true rockhard, but do you do these operations so much that the cost make sit worth it? I just look at it this way, a good SCSI drive now costs ~$200 more then a good IDE. Will the almost indeterminable speed increase (depending on what you're doing of course, some operations are bear a very noticeable difference in speed) wind up saving you money in the long run? I make 15 an hour, so this drive better save me at least 14 hours of time within the next year or so that I use it! Not counting the cost of the SCSI controllers!

 

[Dark1]

I'm trying to get one of those scsi drive off of ebay and use it as the scracth disk for my art programs or use it to hold the page file for win2k will scsi increase my system performance this in any way?

 

[lozina]

For art programs I think what you really want is to beef up RAM. Having a slightly faster hard drive really won't be a financially wise move to make since it only helps when you initially load or save a file, and such operations are not so much faster than the high performance IDE. Once it's loaded, applying filters and editting the image only work with memroy. Furthermore, and more importantly, art files take up ALOT of space... to go SCSI is also bad mvoe because they are inherently smaller capacity by design (in order to get the phenomenal spin speeds). While IDE have enormous space...

 

[Mostyn]

there is a known performance problem using scsi with wxp.

 

[Dark1]

The ram is a ready beefed up to the max that the board can take. I programs like Photoshop/Fireworks you need at least one primary scratch disk and I was hoping that replacing the 2nd Ide drive that I use for the scratch disk with a scsi drive would give it an extra performance boost.

 

[SCSIfreek]

For the average Joe its not worth the money for a all SCSI system. If you're looking for performance go with a IDE RAID or get more RAM. SCsi isnt for everyone but its well worth the money for those who could use its potential(multi-task) also try out the new 15K RPM drives and tell me there isnt any difference.

 

[Sundog]

Originally posted by: Mostyn
there is a known performance problem using scsi with wxp.

Yep:|

The performance in XP is so bad I am switching back to Win2000. My speeds were much faster in W2K.

 

[BD231]

Has Microsoft said anything about the problem?

 

[no0b]

promoted IDE, winxp reconizes my ide controller as a scsi controller (Of course I dont get any more performance)

 

[mastertech01]

Originally posted by: Sundog

Originally posted by: Mostyn
there is a known performance problem using scsi with wxp.

Yep:|

The performance in XP is so bad I am switching back to Win2000. My speeds were much faster in W2K.

Mike, if you convert your drives over to dynamic disk you will gain back most, if not all your performance. I experimented with XP,2K,and Win2k Advanced server, and with dynamic disks you will see good performance. After going back to Win2k, it seemed rather chump after having XP for some time. I found the main benefit of Advanced server was the software raid utilites, but not much of anything else. For the marginal difference in performance that Win2k may offer, and considering what I paid for XP Pro, I quickly went back to XP using dynamic disk. You will also find there is a patch from MS to help with your SCSI performance, but I found it didnt offer much. I also find that my raid performance was not nearly as affected by XP as single drives. Give dynamic disk a try, and then compare with 2K. I think you will find that you are giving up a lot for peanuts in performance going back to 2K.

 

[rockhard]

This is quite true rockhard, but do you do these operations so much that the cost make sit worth it?

I have up to 60-80GB of archive stuff to process every week.
To go through that lot with an IDE drive is a nono as i would waste so much time it would not be funny.
Yes it is worth it.
To wade through that lot with any IDE setup would cost me a lot of time i dont have.

 

[dkozloski]

I'm running a Mylex Acceleraid 150 card with four ultra F/W(40Mb/sec) Seagate drives in a RAID 0 in WinXP and I'm getting a transfer rate in Atto up to 65 Mb/sec. The performance is at least as good as it was in Win98SE. The only way I can duplicate the slow performance that others are getting in WinXP is to set the logical drive to direct IO rather than delayed reads and writes. My guess is that somehow the Windows cache is getting disabled.

 

[mastertech01]

It CAN be good

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

Also, SCSI drives last a lot longer than IDE...

 

[Goosemaster]

WOW...


I just did a before and after with ATTO and changing my scsi HD to Dynamic


damn..that change is freakin' amazng

Regularly it was struggling to get past 15-20MB/s

Now it is Reading 70MB/s and writing at about 32MB/s

This is the greatest fix I have ever applied...


I had actually done this before, but I wanted to add another os to the drive, and never bothered to check the "speed improvement" because I was not aware that there was one.

 

[Goosemaster]

anyone see such a drastic change as well...?


My other, older Seagate 9GB on my dad's pc improved drasitaclly as well...untill it hit it's 20MB/s peak transfer rate:frown:

Their speeds with small files are what changed most..My Atlas 10kII improved with large files as well

 

[kreno]

hehe, yeah, for intensive uses, like 3D rendering, database work, archiving of data, etc... SCSI is king... That's why my next box will be host to SCSI drives. The random read/write speeds are unsurpassable by IDE... My 40GB Maxtor gets about 6 - 7MB/sec random read/write (and that's the one that really counts folks). And older SCSI drives get around 12 - 18MB/sec... It's non-negotiable, when you want the end all be all great performance drives, you get SCSI.

 

[TeflonMan1]

Mastertech do you have a link on some kind of guide on how to convert your drive to a dynamic disk. Right now Im running an Atlas 10KII on a 2940U2 card. My write performane is around 35 mb/s but my read is horrible. Never going over 11 mb/s. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Terrapin]

All I know is that for the past ten years, I've only used scsi drives; usually cheetahs. The speed was obviously excellent, but the reliability has been amazing. Not once, on any of my four systems during that time have I had any Hard Drive issues.

That said; I am building a new system this week. This will be the first system to not have scsi I've built in ten years. Everyone tells me IDE has come too far to make scsi make sense any longer. Even Plextor has scaled back on the products it produces that are compatible with scsi. Recent reviews seem to indicate that the Wester Digital LE JB Series Hard Drives are plenty fast; and I am only praying they are also reliable.

I plan to start with the 80gig version of the Western Digital and see how it goes. If I want more speed, I can put in a Raid controller, pick up another 80gig drive and still be way ahead of the game price wise, when comparing to the scsi route.

While I'm allowing logic to guide me here, my heart is still scsi. It's gonna take some time for my heart and mind to get in sync. At least I hope they eventually do ;p

Terrapin

 

[Goosemaster]

Teflonman1,


Since you are using windows2000:

GO into Control Pnael>Adminstrative Tools> Computer Management

Then under storage in the left colum, click DIsk management, and on your right, all you disk drives should appear.

Each Disk drive has two sections(one where its details are given..the other where a picture of its use is given.

Right-click on the Maxtor 10kII details and choose "change to dynamic disk"

You need to restart twice.

Thanks it

 

[mastertech01]

Originally posted by: TeflonMan1
Mastertech do you have a link on some kind of guide on how to convert your drive to a dynamic disk. Right now Im running an Atlas 10KII on a 2940U2 card. My write performane is around 35 mb/s but my read is horrible. Never going over 11 mb/s. Any help would be appreciated.

The instructions can be found in the help section from the start menu. Simply go to the administrative tools section/computer management/disk management and find the drive you want to convert..right click and select convert to dynamic..



EDIT... looks like Goosemaster beat me to it.. LOL