Is this SCSI better than IDE?

What are your opinions if I can get

IDE
The new Western Digital claiming Access Times of 8.9ms
100 GB - $120 dollars

<<or>>

SCSI
Two Fujitsu 10000 RPMs claiming 4.5ms RAIDed
2 x 18.4 GB - $220 dollars total

Keep in mind I also need a controller if I go SCSI.

Which brings me to my next question, What is the cheapest controller that can handle raiding these babies?

Please give your opinion, I don't know if going SCSI would be THAT much faster with all of these faster IDEs. Thanks.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by kaisar on 09/05/02 04:52 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Well I am on a Budget, but I do run massive programs like Togethersoft and I'd like to have the quickest setup possible.
Is there a GOOD (not cheap) scsi controller that I could get that would perform well on a workstation like mine?

Its 2.4GHz 533MHz FSB 512MB RAM etc etc top of the line
but I want to do the right HD setup... personal opinions
are what I base my own on.

Thanks for your help (only person thats ever replied)

http://www.togethersoft.com/produc [...] indows.jsp states that you need a minimum of 180GB of HD space to run TogetherSoft. This means that you would have to spend several thousands of dollars in SCSI drives to get that kind of space. Since you are on a budget, I recommend you install a couple of Western Digital Special Editions with 8MB cache in a RAID 0 configuration. You would spend about $400 for a 2x120 MB array or about $800 for a 2x200MB one.
Take a look at http://www.tomshardware.com/storag [...] index.html
WD Special Editions can even outperform some SCSI drives.


__________________________________________________
It's not important to know all the answers, as long as you know how to contact someone who does.

You only need 180MB HDD space to run Together ControlCenter 6.0~
180GB would be WAY too much, man!
I would suggest you to use SCSI instead of IDE because my WD120JB is slow as hell~

Take a look on ebay and watch for some deals, I picked up a Hitachi drive 10k 16 meg of cache (yeah take that WD) 18.2 gig for 50 bucks. SCSI drives are built better, have longer warranties and are meant to be run 24/7. Yes you will spend more on a setup, but you will be happy with it for a much longer period of time and the access rates simply put anything IDE to shame. These same people that are spouting the wonderous glories of the WD drive will soon be recomending another flavor of the month with the next release of a faster IDE/serial drive.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

the larger cache facilitates more optimal read writes... hard to explain really, but <A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com" target="_new">http://www.storagereview.com</A> did a review of the 800JB, clickable from the front page. there u can see the performance benefits.

personally comparing my 800JB with my D740X the 800JB has a slightly lower seek time, but higher sustained transfer rate... and is <b>MUCH</b> more zippy handling lots of small files.


<b>Trust Me, Trust Yourself, Trust the Hamster. Anyone else - Shoot Them. </b> This sig was proudly brought to you by <i>Hammie</i>

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Huh? Increasing your cache size on the drive has limited impact once you have enough to cover the rotancional latencey of the platter. For this 2 meg is more than sufficient. The drive has no idea what information may be requested from the OS and merely caches data sequentialy. The OS actually does a much better job of guessing what information it may need and setups its own cache buffer in main memory. It most cases the extra money spent for an 8 meg cache drive over its 2 meg counterpart would be better spent on main system memory. There are exceptions where extra cache does make a difference, for instance AV editing. Here, the drives firmware utilizes and uses the extra cache to iron out the transfer variations common in a mechancal drive. This results in a much smoother STR across multiple platters. However, AV drives typically have slighlty slower maximum transfer rates than there non AV counterparts. However, they do offer a much smoother transfer across multiple platters . Did you know that this is what the JB drive was oringinally intended for?

The maxtor drive has a faster seek. I think this is what you meant to say.

Yes it does. This has more to do with the platter density than the extra cache. STR is nice, however, typical users rarely move large enough chunks of data to notice slightly higher STR's. And if they are, as in the case of the JB drive, they are doing it across the IDE interface, which, quite frankly sucks.

This zippy feeling you described is much more an attribute of faster seeks than sustained transfer. It is what makes the 10k and 15k SCSI drives feel so much faster than the IDE counterparts. It is only on vary rare occasions that the data the OS seeks is actually in the drive cache. If you have a 120 gig drive such as the jb what are the chances that the the data you are requesting is on the miniscule 8 meg cache of the drive? The drive has no clue what to cache.


Taken from storage review:

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Now, a little about hard drive benchmarks. First of all a good HDD bench tries to isolate the drive as much as possible from the OS. This is a good thing in the aspect it makes direct comparisons more feasable. However, it has its downside as well. It does not always translate into real world performance. We have seen this over and over with different parts of our computers. For instance take HDD tach. A commonly misunderstood component of that test is the "burst transfer" test. Basicaly its a test of how fast the drive can send information from its cache buffer. Nice and all but it gets misunderstood. A lot of people seem to think that if you are doing alot of small file transfers than this will automatically come form the drives cache. Seldom in the real world is this the case. That information had to get there somehow. And it did, by reading the information from the disk sequntially after its last read operation. Now if it just happens that this data is what you need then great, but as I said earlier this is seldom the case. Do the math, what are the chances of a random 8 megs of data being the data you need when you have upwards of 100 gig of data?

All and all the JB is a good drive, this I admit. I question the impact the additional cache actually has on this aspect of it however. And to make such a statement as it being a replacement for high end SCSI is just laughable. If you want a decent high volume mass storage subsytem then IDE is a solution. However if you want a screaming seat of your pants "feel", then, at this moment, SCSI is the best. It will remain so untill IDE/serial drives break the 7200 Rpm conundrum that they seem to be stuck in.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ncogneto on 09/07/02 08:52 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Man that was loud in that font! Anyway, SCI is expensive, faster, hotter,once you learn how to set it up it is fantastic. Did I mention expensive oh well. If you have more than one drive on the bus the transfers are so quick it will leave you wondering wtf was that, did it do it and already!
Then if you raid these beasts it happens almost before you click!! IDE sux yes, but for the everyday user the WD are actually very good or so I hear, the trick is to research on SCSI before you invest otherwise you WILL be caught out. The other thing I have found out is everyone slams certain drive manufactures in IDE but we have to remember that these SCSI drives are made for server markets and must be reliable which is why a 5 year warranty is placed on the drives, what is bad in IDE is not necessarily the case in SCSI.

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/index.php" target="_new">A better place to be</A>

Are you claiming that the extra cache is responsible for this? If so please tell me how tht is possible.

Not only do I doubt the value of the extra cache for everyday usage, I doubt the benchmarks as well. Please read why.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

I think you are missing my point. Whenever you here someone talk about this drive it always the WD JB <b>with 8 meg cache</b>

I never said it wasn't a nice drive. However, what I am trying to make a point of is the fact that the extra 6 meg of cache does very little if anything in normal everyday usage. Benchmarks that isolate the drive from the OS will show a performance increase, however, in most real world apps the OS is better suited to handle the cacheing in the system buffer. Do to the success of this drive I am sure that we are bound to see other drives with additional cache as well. It will be little more than marketting. Do you remember the first gforce mx's? Remember how a few came equipped with DDR memory? It added nothing.

Guess what? Maxtor will soon offer a drive with an option to have 8 meg of cache the D780 dx....... You starting to see my point?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ncogneto on 09/07/02 11:40 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Ncogneto, this is getting a bit off-topic, but I think you've got a point about the BB/JB 2MB/8MB cache. Maybe not a valid one, but point is a point.

Anyway, IMO there is a golden opportunity to settle this one for good. Let's assume that the BB and JB models are identical except for the cache size (WD hasn't tuned JB's caching algorithms for 8MB cache or anything like that). Should be fairly straightforward to eliminate all other variables by using identical disk images and benchmark runs for both of the drives. Is there something like that already out there, anyone?

In any case, I think I'll drop an E-mail to some THG eds and ask them to check if they find anything newsworthy about the 8MB hype.


<b>What do you mean, "don't touch that heatsink"? Step aside and let me show you howWAAAAH!!</b>

This is a difficult question for me to answer beyond my own personal testing. Patrick did the review of the Western Digital "JB" products in the following article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/storag [...] index.html

I have to agree with is conclusions in the article, the drive is an excellent buy and I too highly recommend it.

My experience with the drives is perhaps a little more extensive than Patrick's as I have two of the 80GB "JB" series drives in my workstation that I use every day here in my lab. From my experience with the drives, they seem to excel in areas like Photoshop or video editing. (Anytime that I am working with very large files!)

The over all performance of the drive is quite good and I have been impressed with the technology behind the drives.

As for the cache, it seems to me from my discussions with Western Digital that the idea they have a new advanced highly optimized cache strategy that improves performance might be a little more marketing hype than anything else. It is obvious to me that in situations where you are dealing with large files there is an improvement in performance, but in normal every day use the performance gap isn't perhaps as large as WDC would like us to believe.

A few weeks back I saw 4 of the 100GB JB series drives in a RAID 5 configuration on an Adaptec 2400A controller and I have to admit that for the data base application server that this systems was configured for the performance improvement was very good. Again, these folks were using the drives in a configuration that was dealing with a lot of large data base file what were storing pictures, so perhaps this was a good application and I further liked the performance of the Adaptec 2400A controller as well. It is a very good option for those who want RAID 5, but don't want SCSI.

The bottom line is in my opinion, Yes, it is a better drive in many situations, but depending on the use of the unit will dictate the over all performance improvement and while it might not be as large as some might like, anything that improves the performance of the hard drive, I am all for. With the "JB" series drive being priced as reasonable as they are here in the states, if you are going to go IDE there is no reason why you should not consider the "JB" series drives even if the performance gain isn't all that much.

Better than SCSI for server applications? - I really find that hard to beleive that a good Compaq array could not beat the snot out of the "JB"s in a simular situation, but cost the "JB" drives should give you more storage for less money. Depends on the application as to what is important to you.

BTW - I saw some one suggest that you can pick up the SCSI drives cheap on Ebay, and I too want echo that, but what you have to watch for is that they are not OEM drives that are pulls, because in those cases many time the drive maker has sold the warranty for the drive to the OEM and if the drive should fail you are not going to be able to RMA them back to the drive maker. I saw this with some Seagate drives that came via Compaq and Seagate refused to honor the warranty on them and Compaq said that they were sold with an Array and if he could not prove where they were purchased, Compaq was not going to replace the drive either. Let the buyer beware!

Now, to get back on topic your best solution might be none of the above. First, I will have to admit that I am not familuar with togethersoft. Is it highly I/O intensive? What kind of access patterns does it generally generate? Have you thought about a real good 10 - 15k Scsi drive in the 18-36 gig range for your OS with a JB as a storage device? Why do you feel the need to RAID 2 SCSI drives?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ncogneto on 09/08/02 07:42 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

In addition this is what I don't like to see and challenge: From the HDD faq on this forum:

Now imagine an operation in which the application requests a file say in the range of 100kb ( small ). As it travels down the driver stack it must first, in the case of the JB, search the entire 8 meg buffer. If it finds the requested info there great. However if it doesn't, only then will the drive carryout a seak request to fetch the data from the disk. In the case of an identical drive with a 2 meg buffer you can see that the access will actually occur faster then as opposed to the drive with the 8 meg of cache. To clearly see if the drive offers any improvement in this typical role we must decipher its cache hit rate.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

I stand corrected (and go off-topic myself. Sorry, I can resist everything but temptation). Now that I checked the WD website, WD800BB and WD800JB are indeed totally different drives, three platters vs two platters and all.

After another quick glance, WD1200BB and WD1200JB seem identical except for the cache size. Would you consider a comparison between those two to be apples-to-apples? I hope so, since good old Google coughed up <A HREF="http://www.xbitlabs.com/storage/120gb-ide/" target="_new">this</A> piece from X-bit Labs. Looks like they've been quite thorough about the caching issue. To me it seems that the 8MB cache does make some difference in more than one case. Of course, it is still up to debate whether those benchmarks reflect real life or not. For the sake of the argument, let's say that they do. In real life, I think some 10% - 15% improvement in HD speed isn't something you'd notice <i>unless</i> you do something very disk-intensive. You'll have to benchmark.

Regardless, I agree with dstell: "anything that improves the performance of the hard drive, I am all for." Well, maybe not anything if the cost is increased noise and heat, which is why I find the idea about bigger and better HD caches very appealing. So success of JB disks might push other HD manufacturers to larger cache sizes. So what? Maybe they'll come up with some real neat caching algorithms that put the extra memory to good use. With what the memory prices today, the price difference to us consumers will probably be small. Would be kind of difficult to charge a "premium" for lousy 6MB if everybody else is putting in some extra as well. And the memory really doesn't have to be some top-notch stuff. Even SATA has only 150MB/s max. burst rate. By the way, IMO cache size alone has very little effect to cache latency. Caching algorithms and parameters (associativity and stuff like that) are the most significant factors.

Phew, looks like I'm getting a bit overzealous here. As for me, I recently got new 60GB drive, considered 80GB JB drive, didn't buy one. Having said that, I apologize for the inconvenience, follow LHGPooBaa's lead and go post something on-topic.

<b>What do you mean, "don't touch that heatsink"? Step aside and let me show you howWAAAAH!!</b>

To clarify yet again the issue is not that the JB out benches the BB the issue is why. As you and others seem to suggest the reason is the additional cache. And pardon me for sounding sarcastic, but no-one has yet to offer any logical sound reasoning as to why. Would I recomend the JB over the BB...YES! Would I be so bold to say that the reason it does outperform the BB is just the cache? NO!

As for being off topic you may be correct, however this is just a good as place as any for discussion on the issue and quite frankly I am bored to death of the Intel vs. AMD patter.

If you read my above statements I have, with identical drives who's difference is merely added cache. You see I fell into the same trap myself once and actually questioned seagate ( who was kind enough to reply I might add ) about this very issue.

Take for example the Nvidia ti4200 64 meg vs the ti4400 with 128 meg. It is common knowledge that the TI4200 outbenches the TI 4400. Why? Because the TI 4200 utilizes faster memory.[speculation] Perhaps this might be a reason as well, is the JB in fact using faster cache?[/speculation]

I really don't see how. Even the best algorithm will never be able to outperform the OS? Why? Quite simply it (the drive) has no clue as to what to cache.

Well I wish I could have opened up this can of worms on his HDD faq but unfortunatly I cannot post to it



It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ncogneto on 09/08/02 11:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Amen to the maxtor warranty issue. I used to always highly recomend Maxtor and even still considered the 740dx to be preferable to the WD drive. While it did not perform quite as well their (maxtor) warranty and RMA policy was second to none. This in my book was worth more than the slight increase in performance of the WD who, in my experiance, did not have as good a return policy. This change by Maxtor changes everything. I would really like to see a public outcry perhaps give them a change of heart. Take note people...this is bad for everybody!

You also touched on a point that is rarely brought up in the SCSI vs IDE debate. And that is that Most SCSI drives carry a 5 year warranty. Now an argument can be made that is because they are built to a higher standard or that you are just paying a premium price for that warranty.....probably a little of both, still it is a real issue and something that must also be considered when choosing between IDE and SCSI...exspecially if we are soon to see IDE drives carrying only a 1 year warranty.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

Thanks for everybody's replies.

What is the model and specifications on that RAID card?


I'm willing to shell out a little extra money to have a
dope machine. Ideally, I would like to run multiple
instantiations of Togethersoft smoothly and be able to
tap into a game of 1942 or something as well.

I am worried about spending TOO much money though. Do
you think I could spend 2 bills on a SCSI controller
and two drives, throw in a bill for a IDE storage drive,
and get a system quicker than spending all 3 bills on IDE?

Thanks for your help

It's an American Megatrends Enterprise 1400.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

will have to look at it again... in my copious free time lol

<b><font color=orange>My <font color=green>life <font color=red>has <font color=blue>been <font color=black>so <font color=purple>much <font color=yellow>more <font color=orange>colourful <font color=green>since <font color=blue>the <font color=red>advent <font color=black>of <font color=purple>Super <font color=red>VGA!