Notice Difference Between IDE 7200 and SCSI 15000?

[Necrosaro420]

Would you notice a speed difference accessing the hard drive when you move from a 7200rpm ide drive to a scsi 15000rpm drive?

Reason im asking is I just built a near top of the line system, and it has a 7200rpm ide drive in it. While playing Vanguard, I notice that it runs great until it has to access the hard drive and it starts lagging, and I look at the light and the drive light is going crazy.

If so, what all would I need?

I know the drive, scsi cable, and scsi card (Someone told me the Ultra160 card?) and a Terminator? What is the Terminator?

Thanks!

 

[trojan698]

Probably some fangled name for a harddrive. AFAIK thats all you need.

It sounds like your current HD might be borked if its taking ages to load anything - run HDTach and post your results

 

[pe3046]

First off, always start with a prayer to the scsi gods.

A terminator terminates the scsi bus but you would mostly need one if you are connecting to a external device. Your scsi host adapter supplies power to the scsi bus and the terminator (can be active or passive) stops the flow. Most internal ribbon cables have a terminator built in these days.

In reality you would want a pci-x, 66, or pci-e ultra 320 scsi host adapter raid controller ($160-300), and a couple of 15k drives ($160-300+...or if you dont go 68 pin then a 68 pin to 80 sca adapter) and configure them in a raid array (don't forget to set your scsi id's). This would give you much better performance then a ide 7200 rpm drive.

But why go through all that hassle, scsi only makes sense if you are running a enterprise class workstation or server. Get yourself a SATA controller ($15-50), raptor 36gb 16mb cache ($110), some more ram and be done with it. If your pc is up to spec you will see a improvement.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: pe3046
First off, always start with a prayer to the scsi gods.

A terminator terminates the scsi bus but you would mostly need one if you are connecting to a external device. Your scsi host adapter supplies power to the scsi bus and the terminator (can be active or passive) stops the flow. Most internal ribbon cables have a terminator built in these days.

In reality you would want a pci-x, 66, or pci-e ultra 320 scsi host adapter raid controller ($160-300), and a couple of 15k drives ($160-300+...or if you dont go 68 pin then a 68 pin to 80 sca adapter) and configure them in a raid array (don't forget to set your scsi id's). This would give you much better performance then a ide 7200 rpm drive.

But why go through all that hassle, scsi only makes sense if you are running a enterprise class workstation or server. Get yourself a SATA controller ($15-50), raptor 36gb 16mb cache ($110), some more ram and be done with it. If your pc is up to spec you will see a improvement.

you appear to know what you are talking about until the last paragraph. that is pure rubbish. i have 2 74gb raptors and i can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that the 36gb will not be a big improvement. not even worth the money in the upgrade. if you are going to upgrade the drives and have a few dollars to throw around, get the 150gb raptor instead of SCSI. SCSI is a pain for a consumer system...go with SATA. i have my 74s in RAID and it is definitely WAY faster than one of them alone, which are faster than most other drives ive used anyway. my windows boot screen doesnt even show up. it goes from post -> welcome screen.

 

[pe3046]

I have owned and do own all kinds of drives-from 4.3gb 7200 rpm to 147gb 15k scsi drives in single drive, jbod, raid 0, raid 1, raid 5, and raid 10 from 18gb to 7tb. Each has it's own use and I have tailored each array or drive to be the most cost effective as money is an object to me and most enterprises. For OS only usage I use the 36gb 16mb cache versions for their low cost on the windows side of things (and scratch disk on OSX) and 74gb 16mb versions for OSX installs.

It all comes down to buying what you need inconjuction with what you can afford. The OP should buy what best suits their needs after identifying what their needs are. My post was simply to point out that there are affordable alternatives to SCSI, and that a raptor is a good place to start given the limited information in the OP.

 

[corkyg]

What you need to know about SCSI termination and the Ultra 160 "Terminator."

SCSI

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: trojan698
Probably some fangled name for a harddrive. AFAIK thats all you need.

LOL. You have much to learn about SCSI.

All SCSI buses need proper termination. Older devices/slower channels have it on devices, newer peripherals have it on the cable. Some cables have it built in, some don't.

You *may* notice an increase in seek and access times, but probably not much in sustained transfer speed. SCSI really starts to shine when you have several drives working in tandem.

 

[Necrosaro420]

Well it sounds like SCSI is a pain? lol. I might end up going with the Raptor then. I am just using it for gaming. I built a E6600 System (2gb dominator2 ram), evga 680i mobo, evga 8800gtx superclocked vid, and itll lag at times on max settings, and when its lagging, my hard drive light will be going nuts.


So do you all think the 10,000rpm drive would help any over the 7200? thanks!

 

[MDE]

This sounds like a RAM issue and nothing to do with the hard drive. How much RAM do you have installed and how much is being used when your hard drive "goes crazy?"

 

[Necrosaro420]

Originally posted by: MDE
This sounds like a RAM issue and nothing to do with the hard drive. How much RAM do you have installed and how much is being used when your hard drive "goes crazy?"

2gb Corsiar Dominator 2 at 1066mhz pc2-8500 I think it is. As far as how much is being used, I have no clue. Its on a fresh install of XP Pro sp2 as well.

 

[jose]

Scsi is simple to setup, all you have to do is read the install manual of the controller.

Anyway I have several scsi systems using 10k and 15K drives, I also have a 150gig raptor..

Right now I'm building 10 workstations, A64 3700+ w/ 1gig of ram and a 15K Fuji drive.. I talked my customer to switch to 15k drives because of speed and reliablity.

We've replaced several ide drives and in 18 yrs of business I've only replaced 1 4ig Seagate Barracuda... That's on 24/7 systems running linux/unix....

In my personal build I have 3 - 73g Fuji 15K drives and 1 - 150g raptor, their is a big difference in access time between these drives...

I would never put a 7200 rpm drive in my system, they are way too slow..

Regards,
Jose