IDE RAID vs. SCSI Investigation @ X-bit labs

[NFS4]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/storage/ide-scsi/

 

[Thor86]

Good read. If price is no object, and you require high-reliability, SCSI still rules.

 

[BatmanNate]

That is an apples to oranges comparisson. It's not SCSI vs. IDE, or SCSI RAID vs. IDE RAID. You're talking about a single drive configuration vs. a RAID array, two completely different situations. Not to mention, when SCSI is more reliable than IDE to begin with, your are quartering your MTBF running in a 4 drive stripe array, and that is data suicide. 4 drives plus the controller aren't exactly cheap either. SCSI still provides a clear benefit to IDE as far as single drive transfer speeds and access times, as well as warranty. Granted, it comes at a cost, but IDE does not compare at this point.

 

[Adul]

damn that fujitsu drive looks good

 

[mrman3k]

You know, I know RAID was originally intended to be for data security and backup, but I consider RAID 0 in the category that is basically like having a single hard drive but only with more data throughput. If you have only 1 hard drive and it fails, that is it, same with RAID 0. SCSI I think is the best for critical data applications such as servers, but I do not think it has a place in standard home gaming machines anymore.

 

[Toolman]

Right on Batman Nate, that was no comparison, that sucked! Get a SCSI RAID in there, that would be a comparison. Where was the Quantum/Maxtor 10K IV?

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Toolman
Right on Batman Nate, that was no comparison, that sucked! Get a SCSI RAID in there, that would be a comparison. Where was the Quantum/Maxtor 10K IV?

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

I sold it after a month. To me, it WAS and STILL IS a big waste of my money and efforts (not to mention that you have to buy a controller for the beast).

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally in the X-bit labs article:
Second, we saw that different disk subsystems proved better in different tasks: SCSI drives are best working under their native server workloads while IDE drives in RAID0 arrays do sequential read and write very well.

Talk about a waste of time. That is the most OBVIOUS characteristic of the drives.

Anyone worth a nickel knows that

 

[CQuinn]

Not to mention, when SCSI is more reliable than IDE to begin with, your are quartering your MTBF running in a 4 drive stripe array, and that is data suicide.

I think that is technically incorrect. The MTBF does not change any more than it would running four drives separately on the
same system. Excuse my assumption, but I think the point you want to make is that it (running the drives in IDE RAID),
increases the chance of failure by a factor of 4, not that it suddenly makes the hardware inherently more unstable.

 

[Toolman]

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

You change hardware more often than I go thru rolls of toilet paper! My system has remained unchanged for almost two years. When I made the move from IDE to SCSI I went from a 5400 rpm IDE to my present SCSI 10K2 and I noticed a tremendous difference. It WAS and STILL is worth it to me. Too bad it wasn't a satisfying experience for you.

Despite your position, I'm still sick of hearing the "SCSI is dead" spin while they compare apples to oranges just like this article did!

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Toolman

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

You change hardware more often than I go thru rolls of toilet paper! My system has remained unchanged for almost two years. When I made the move from IDE to SCSI I went from a 5400 rpm IDE to my present SCSI 10K2 and I noticed a tremendous difference. It WAS and STILL is worth it to me. Too bad it wasn't a satisfying experience for you.

Despite your position, I'm still sick of hearing the "SCSI is dead" spin while they compare apples to oranges just like this article did!

I have to agree that a least a modest power user will notcie the difference.

I have run one of my systems with a 40GB IBM 7200rpm and ther is no contest.. the IDE just chokes when I need it.


Unfortunately my SCSI drive is in the shop so one system is using an 8GB 5400rpm....lets just say I can't either get work down or play right now.....

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: CQuinn

Not to mention, when SCSI is more reliable than IDE to begin with, your are quartering your MTBF running in a 4 drive stripe array, and that is data suicide.

I think that is technically incorrect. The MTBF does not change any more than it would running four drives separately on the
same system. Excuse my assumption, but I think the point you want to make is that it (running the drives in IDE RAID),
increases the chance of failure by a factor of 4, not that it suddenly makes the hardware inherently more unstable.

Your MTBF doesn't technically change, but pure probability states that you're twice as likely to lose a hard drive in a 2 disk array than you are with one. And 4 times as likely in a 4 disk array.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Toolman
Right on Batman Nate, that was no comparison, that sucked! Get a SCSI RAID in there, that would be a comparison. Where was the Quantum/Maxtor 10K IV?

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

I sold it after a month. To me, it WAS and STILL IS a big waste of my money and efforts (not to mention that you have to buy a controller for the beast).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're running Office, video games, and surfing the internet, not running an enterprise server.

 

[Remedy]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Toolman
Right on Batman Nate, that was no comparison, that sucked! Get a SCSI RAID in there, that would be a comparison. Where was the Quantum/Maxtor 10K IV?

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

I sold it after a month. To me, it WAS and STILL IS a big waste of my money and efforts (not to mention that you have to buy a controller for the beast).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're running Office, video games, and surfing the internet, not running an enterprise server.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Toolman
Right on Batman Nate, that was no comparison, that sucked! Get a SCSI RAID in there, that would be a comparison. Where was the Quantum/Maxtor 10K IV?

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

I bought an 18.GB Atlas 10k III SCSI drive for my system a while back. Besides costing about 3 times as much for an equivalent IDE solution and being louder, it offered NO real world improvement over the 7200GB WD drive I was using before.

I sold it after a month. To me, it WAS and STILL IS a big waste of my money and efforts (not to mention that you have to buy a controller for the beast).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're running Office, video games, and surfing the internet, not running an enterprise server.

7200RPM WD drives generally have pretty good performance. Thus, you might not notice much difference when going to a marginally faster RPM SCSI drive with a smaller platter size (less data density on the platters).

However, the 15000 RPM SCSI drives really shine in access times (an area SCSI has always beaten IDE in), and that's why I'd rather have a 15000RPM SCSI drive that is half the size of a 7200RPM IDE RAID setup; although IDE RAID helps data transfer rates tremendously, it can't do anything for access time, and access time is probably the greatest single disk-related factor in determining the "feel" of a system, unless you're working only in Adobe Premiere.

 

[Alptraum]

I'm so nauseated with hearing how SCSI is dead and it's a big waste to go with it over IDE.

While you may/will hear this in the home market you will pretty much never hear it in the business market. For servers SCSI kicks IDE all over the place. It's always been that way. Unless there is some sort of major price change (and I doubt there will be one) IDE will continue to rule at home and SCSI will continue to rule at work (on the servers) market share wise. The extra money for SCSI buys you stuff that most home users would not notice or use.

 

[Sunner]

SCSI isn't worth it for me, I need quite a bit of storage, and load times aren't really that critical to me, but if I needed good disk performance, I'd definately have a look at a SCSI drive.
There's just no comparison between good SCSI drives and good IDE drives, in terms of STR the IDE drives can keep up pretty well, but in terms of seek/write times, any SCSI drive on the market will crush any IDE drive on the market.

SCSI is better, period, but it comes at a cost.

 

[SpideyCU]

I think the reason they did the comparison on SCSI vs. IDE RAID was because it was generally in the same price range. If you compared SCSI RAID against IDE RAID, sure you'd get different results, but the money you'd need to spend to get a SCSI RAID setup going isn't remotely in the same ballpark as IDE. IMO, this was to try and gauge a "best bang for the buck" type of situation.

Just for the record, I gave in and got an IBM SCSI drive for my Linux server (since I'd heard of all these fun throughput issues with WinXP and SCSI, I didn't want to put the two together). I share Alptraum's opinion concerning who is best suited to use IDE or SCSI. Home users don't just do what you need SCSI for - at least not at that price. But in business, you'd be suicidal to try and run enterprise servers on IDE RAID.

 

[SCSIfreek]

I had been running SCSI harddrives for 4+ years and never had I complain about its speed. recently setup a machine for a friend with new 7200rpm IDE drives. Believe it or not there were differences. For some reason, the IDE drives wasn't as spontaneous as my old 10K rpm drives.

Lately, I got some 80GB 8MB WD drives in RAID 0 to test it out and yet again <---SCSI 0wned IDE. Simply put, access time on IDE drives aint in the same level as SCSI drives. I do have one complain against SCSI drives that is you'll never be able to sleep with SCSI drives cranking in the back of your room

 

[Jgtdragon]

I had been running SCSI harddrives for 4+ years and never had I complain about its speed. recently setup a machine for a friend with new 7200rpm IDE drives. Believe it or not there were differences. For some reason, the IDE drives wasn't as spontaneous as my old 10K rpm drives.

Lately, I got some 80GB 8MB WD drives in RAID 0 to test it out and yet again <---SCSI 0wned IDE. Simply put, access time on IDE drives aint in the same level as SCSI drives. I do have one complain against SCSI drives that is you'll never be able to sleep with SCSI drives cranking in the back of your room

Exactly. My friend's new IDE drives just choke when a program requires 50% or more cpu. His whole OS slow down to a crawl. Run the same programs on my scsi system, and it is smooth as it was running one single program. He got a faster cpu and same kind and amount of rams.

 

[v1rtuoso]

Why aren't there any 10k or 15k rpm IDE drives being produced?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: v1rtuoso
Why aren't there any 10k or 15k rpm IDE drives being produced?

Because they would be too expensive, too hot, and too noisey (well, the new 15K RPM Seagates are very quiet except when seeking, from what I've been told) for the benefits they would provide to the average user.

Power users (like most of us here) might benefit from the higher rotational speed, but the interface to the drive would still hold back the performance somewhat (not in transfer speed, but rather because IDE lacks things like command queueing - something that benefits SCSI greatly). I heard that Serial ATA has command queueing, but that might have been a rumor, or a mix-up of the storage bits in my brain.

 

[Bovinicus]

Interesting little article. I do wish there were some single drive IDE benchmarks in there for comparison.

I still consider IDE to be the way to go for the average power user. Unless you really have a lot of extra cash, it simply costs too much to obtain the same amount of storage with SCSI as with IDE. The extra performance is nice, but it matters little for most operations that geeks are concerned with. Of course, if you're not into downloading MP3s or movies, then the speed of SCSI might be beneficial to you. I need my DiVX though!