SCSI vs. IDE drives

hawk · Post by **hawk** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 3:11 pm

Hi!

First I have to say that I really found out the hard way that SCSI hard drives really are better than IDE disks as far as performance is concerned. I used to have a lot of audio glitches, and crackles with my Luna2 on a PIII 1Ghz with 512mb ram. I changed Mobo, graphix card, and not much helped. Then I tried an old saggy SCSI drive, which reads pretty slow, but all of a sudden I got to work perfectly without any obstacles, and I even managed to shorten the Latency to 4ms.

Now I want to buy a SCSI hard drive. Has anyone got tips of what is the best in that manner? I see that 10000rpm drives are available and stuff. I got Tekram 68pin SCSI card.

All help is much appreciated!

Cheers

Hawk

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hawk on 2001-08-25 16:12 ]</font>

Air_PoLLo · Post by **Air_PoLLo** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 3:21 pm

Try firewire external HD*s if u got the ports... also I use SCSI, it's so staaable!

hawk · Post by **hawk** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 3:25 pm

Really? How does that firewire differ from an internal SCSI drive then?

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 4:03 pm

i have an adaptec 19160 (lvd 160MB/sec) controller and a 10,000 rpm, 8MB cache quantum cheetah drive. it is really fast providing more track count than i could possibly ever use (unless i get into orchestra recording or something

). definitely recommended.

the question is: how much performance (ie track count, bit rate) do you need? i suspect that scsi will be more than enough for your needs, and is more $$$. i sorta went overboard on the HD setup, as is capable of more than i need. maybe if you are running video too, SCSI would help . . .

whilst on this topic, i have an 7200 rpm WD ide drive (UDMA 60) as my system drive and the scsi as the audio. what performance are you getting, track count wise, on IDE drives of this type? i suspect more than i will use, as i never use more than 24 tracks @ 16 bit, 44.1 khz. i am thinking of swapping the drives and using the SCSI as system drive and the ide as audio, so that i can have faster/more reliable system performance. thoughts? maybe i'll go all scsi instead . . .

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 4:05 pm

was your performance increase do to the fact that you added a second audio drive (the scsi) and not the nature of scsi itself? . . .

Mo · Post by Mo » Sun Aug 26, 2001 1:32 am

the nature of scsi seems to be the by far faster access times compared to ide - that´s why they are still way better for our purposes.
the access time of a hard disk is the main bottle neck in today´s system´s performance.
get scsi if you can afford it.

felix o. · Post by **felix o.** » Sun Aug 26, 2001 10:24 am

did u try a raid system (ide)? that´s wuat i´m gonna put in my next system.

hawk · Post by **hawk** » Sun Aug 26, 2001 2:35 pm

Thank you guys! Really appreciate your help

@algorhythm I would not recommend you to use IDE drive on your audio, but on the other hand, if you're not using more than 24tracks(Ever?!) then you'd probably benefit from it without getting into trouble. Me however, I want as many tracks as possible :lol
I can see that you think you can gain a lot from processing power by using the SCSI disc on the boot and program disc. As a matter of fact I'd try and see how it works if I were you. If you use a program like Norton Ghost, then iut would be real easy to go back if it didn't work the way you wanted:)
My performance of amount of audiotracks were less audiotracks in fact when changing to this SCSI drive I'm currently trying. And that's because it's old. My big gain with it was that it was able to deliver stable data and not giving me any audioglitches and crackles...

My first motherboard was an Abit BX 133raid, and I painfully experienced the fact that the RAID function was stoopid! when using the computer for audio use. I thought; -hey I got money, I'll buy the fastest of everything. And I bought two 1337200rpm drives. What happens is that the RAID system is "hogging" the PCI bus system for memory in order to achieve the fastest speed on the harddrives. If your audiocard is PCI, then Schbooom, there you go! My advice: Stay clear of raid!!!!

Cheers:)

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed Oct 24, 2001 2:16 pm

An ATA 100 (if your motherboard supports it) is as fast as a slow SCSI which is still much faster than a standard IDE drive plus it won't slow down your computer or use another IRQ.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Wed Oct 24, 2001 3:42 pm

SCSI isn't recommended if you plan on pushing a ton of channels while at the same time running <i>realtime</i> (CreamWare DSP) reverbs.

One reason everyone loves the CUSL2 (and this goes for all Intel i8xx chipsets, BTW), is that the IDE ports do not travel through the PCI bus, but instead connect to the ICH2 hub. This means that you can be pushing your IDE harddisks very hard, and it won't effect your reverbs, etc (Pulsar to/from main memory).

On a 7200RPM ATA100 IDE drive, you can expect at least 38 channels of 44.1khz, 16 bit audio (full audio tracks, all different). If you are using smaller loops, it is possible to get at least 52 stereo pairs:
http://www.infinitevortex.com/images/52stereopair.jpg

That was with a single 7200RPM hd, with the OS on the same drive...

MeloManiac · Post by **MeloManiac** » Wed Oct 24, 2001 4:42 pm

I get 64 tracks on a single IBM IDE drive without any problems. So for now I am going for IDE, until maybe they make SCSI drives as silent, cool and cheap as IDE's.

JoeKa · Post by **JoeKa** » Wed Oct 24, 2001 5:17 pm

On 2001-08-25 17:03, algorhythm wrote:
i have ... a 10,000 rpm, 8MB cache quantum cheetah drive

...the Cheetah is a Seagate drive, Quantum does the Atlas-series...

I have a Seagate Cheetah, too, and I´m just about to change my system into SCSI-only by buying two more SCSI drives, for a much better overall-performance.
This is a decicision for the future, because SCSI has two special advantages IDE-systems cannot keep up with:
-First, every SCSI controller is an "intelligent" device with its own chip for handling all the datatransfer without bothering the main CPU anymore.
-Second, SCSI is able to read and/or write at the same time on different devices. IDE does this in turns... with small amounts of data just being copied from one partition to another, you will hardly ever feel a big difference between SCSI and IDE, but working with multiple drives simultaneously, or copying stuff from one physical to another, well...

Ok, a PCI SCSI-controller will cause some PCI traffic, sure, but as long as you don´t have your system working hard as a local network data storage/server for say 3 or more clients, Pulsar reverbs will do fine, definitely.

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Wed Oct 24, 2001 5:33 pm

yeah, seagate.

check yer PM's joeka