SCSI

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 6:33 am

Thinking of getting scsi hard disk setup seeing access time is about 4-5ms,whereas eide is about 10ms.
Does anyone have this setup or would it be better to wait for SATA systems?
Thx

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 6:37 am

SATA is better at least for one reason - SCSI termination is a nightmare! Avoid scsi if you can:
- SCSI cables are expensive (and you can't get cheap ones if you want to feel safe);
- SCSI disks are to my knowledge much more expensive.

It's your choice but I would never go the SCSI path again (oh no!)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2003-10-02 07:40 ]</font>

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 8:36 am

Just a question:was looking at chipset structure just now and saw that ide and sata are on same bridge as PCI,so if we did away with hard drives and cd-roms wouldn't that leave just the pci's on there own to deal with the chip?Or does it all just come down to IRQ's?
Thx

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 8:49 am

Maybe, but how would you boot your OS to find out if it was any better?

peace

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:17 am

SCSI also affects PCI - at least if it's a PCI SCSI card.

Post by **garyb** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 11:57 am

actually,most modern chipsets(intel for sure anyway)have a separate pathway for pci and ide.scsi is almost always shared with pci.use sata or ide,there is no real world advantage to scsi for your daw.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 10:08 pm

Which chipset do you recommend?Sounds promising.Think I may hold out for PCI-X plus SATA.

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 2:23 am

I've said this million times, but I'll do again

PCI-X is nothing to wait. It's speed is only 2-3 three times PCI and it's not compatible with current cards. Which company would spend a lot of cash to change their cards to fit on PCI-X when The Real Future is overseeable: Pci Express, which is about 100-200 times the speed of PCI.

To the topic, I'd also go with SATA (no extra cards, cheaper, "future technology"

)

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 12:01 pm

Thx spoimola,am a little behind with techno.Just looked up PCI express and it looks impressive,plus it does away with agp I see.It's got a larger bandwith so audio will be flying soon when added with Longhorn.

Post by **garyb** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 9:34 pm

well,things are working pretty well NOW.when the next bleeding edge level comes out in a coupla months,the stuff that is super expensive now will be cheap.go that way,the promise of new technology is always brighter than the reality,when that new technology first hits the market.hey, a 3gig processor with an 800mhz fsb and a gig of the current fast memory is a very powerful machine,still.you can get a whole lot done with 2gig,believe me.the leap forward from your current machine to the current fast machines will be more than worth the price of admission,especially when the price is discounted because the next new hot thing is out.just get the intel solution.

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 9:53 pm

check out reviews on the WD raptor 10000 RPM SATA drive, it is almost as fast as SCSI, SATA drive with the same 5 year warranty as a SCSI drive.

and about 1/2 - 1/3 the price SCSI
if you have the right motherboard you can RAID them on the intel ICH5 hub(southbridge) without using any PCI bandwidth.

right now they have a 38 gig one but a 72 gig one is coming out soon.

im thinking of getting one for my new system drive.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Neutron on 2003-10-04 22:56 ]</font>

Jem · Post by **Jem** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:53 pm

Well, I have been using scsi since a year and it works perfect for me. It works great, no glitchs and pop sounds and never do I get the message your PC is to slow etc...

PCI- X is worthwile to wait for, and the Serial Scsi technology is another great debut planned in 2004. Scsi has always been the professional solution and will be for audio and video production. Thats why the serial ata devices are actually based on the scsi technology.

I definitely would choose scsi again and again and again. And the prices have dropped so that can not be the issue (paid Euro 125 for a 37GB 8mb buffer Fujitsu ultra320 scsi harddisk).

With DVD rewriters coming up how many harddisks do you need. I have 3, one for OS and programs, and 2 audio harddisks. With the dvd writer I can backup al my data. Perfect and cost effective.

Works absolutely flawless. I used to have problems with vdat limited to 8 tracks recording, but since the scsi devices its no more problems, I can record 48+ tracks without problems and never heard any pops and glitch sounds.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 4:46 pm

afaik the main difference between SCSI and ATA is that the first one needs less attention from the CPU (it operates more autonomous) due to a more sophisticated controller design.
That might explain Jem's increased track experience.
The published data rates are theoretical values of isolated controller performance, which will be affected by the driver and the OS in real-world applications.
Anyone remembers those SCSI ProTools systems in pre-PowerPC Macs ?
According to numbers alone those would never been able to work

my 2 cents, Tom

TRMP8R · Post by **TRMP8R** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 10:00 pm

The old SCSI vs IDE battle.

I've done both. Without changing any other hardware whatsover, and running with a single SCOPE /SP card, LAN and USB enabled.

SCSI:
External - rack-mount array with 2 X 36GB HP 10,000 rpm drives for audio (striped), and another 2 X 18GB (mirrored) array for boot/system/applications, connected to an Adpatec Ultra160 SCSI RAID card (PCI).

IDE:
Internal 30GB ATA133 drive for sys/apps
Internal 2 X 80GB ATA133 drives for audio

What I've found:
SCSI: Broke my wallet. Bl****y expensive. CPU at near ZERO. WAY too fast. I was getting 64 tracks of recording with VDAT. 128 tracks in logic. VERY noisy and hot (external array. I didn't want them to heat up my SCOPE card too much). And the termination thing got me a few times (faulty terminator). I even mirrored the audio drives after a while for half the speed which didn't effect my track count whatsoever! However, on a heavy Logic project that included some VDATs and Masterverb Pros, I got some PCI-bus overflow messages and the usual "Your computer is too slow" message thereafter.

IDE: Wow, so cheap now. Getting about 32 tracks in VDAT, 64 in Logic, which is all I ever needed anyway. No PCI overflows - at all, ever. Drives are cooler and quieter. No appreciable additional load on the CPU. CPU's are way fast enough these day to handle the extra IDE bus buffering and control.

And the money I've saved from going IDE, I used to expand my microphone closet.

I haven't tried Serial ATA yet. Perhaps next time I upgrade my mainboard.

For audio enthusiasts, I don't think there's a reason not to go IDE these days. Leave the SCSI mammoths for the banks and web servers.

Anybody want to buy an external SCSI RAID array?