What's the BEST of the best???

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Originally posted by Tripitz


I don't think SATA will make that much of a difference because the high end SCSI drives are just better. 15k rpm drives vs 7200rpm drives leaves no doubt as to which is better currently.

As for people saying that the upgrade to scsi is not worth it, I have to say that my entire system speed increased dramatically when I upgraded to it. It has breathed new life into my system...

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Perhaps for saks of completeness you can explain to us (more specifically the Thread Starter) how SCSI has breathed new life into your box?
Its not that I dont believe you, I just have no experience with using SCSI on your standard 32bit PCI bus. So on paper I have a hard time seeing the benefit of it unless you are using multiple SCSI devices.

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Originally posted by Tripitz
I don't think SATA will make that much of a difference because the high end SCSI drives are just better. 15k rpm drives vs 7200rpm drives leaves no doubt as to which is better currently.

As for people saying that the upgrade to scsi is not worth it, I have to say that my entire system speed increased dramatically when I upgraded to it. It has breathed new life into my system...

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I was thinking that too, but from the January High-End Gaming PC Guide:

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These Western Digital SE drives are the current cream of the IDE hard drive crop and feature a full 8-MB of cache, fast access times and a 7200 RPM speed. These units can approach SCSI performance levels...

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I guess there's more to it than rotation speed. If I can get near equivalent performance at IDE costs and not need to pony up for a SCSI card, that would be nice. And if SATA promises faster data transfer, it could be a contender. I'm just speculating, as I don't know much about HDD technology.

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Originally posted by Isezumi

Perhaps for saks of completeness you can explain to us (more specifically the Thread Starter) how SCSI has breathed new life into your box?
Its not that I dont believe you, I just have no experience with using SCSI on your standard 32bit PCI bus. So on paper I have a hard time seeing the benefit of it unless you are using multiple SCSI devices.

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To put some background into it, I spent about a year sitting on the fence before I went scsi. So many people say the performance boost on a desktop is not that great and pretty much unnoticeable. I've only used scsi on workstations and servers where I really needed it. In any event, I finally decided to go with a single channel card (LSI U160 controller) and 1 x15.3 drive. Despite running on a 32bit PCI bus, the transfer rates of one drive cannot max out the bus, so the limitations of the bus aren't really an issue unless you go with more than 2 drives. Even then, for desktop use, that is still a lot of bandwidth. I also went with a WD800JB Special Edition drive to store pictures and other larger files on. As to the exact results of the switch to the x15.3 as my main drive, basically everything runs faster and 'crisper'. Win2k loads significantly faster and the login procedure is dramatically reduced in load time for startup programs (norton, aim, etc). When browsing files and programs on the scsi drive, feedback and load times are almost instant. I would attrbute most of this to just the fact that the seek time on the x15.3 is ridiculously low. Other areas where I notice it is when I use explorer to browse thumbnails of pictures taken from my digital camera. Compared to the Western Digital drive, again, the Seagate is just that much faster. Its a second here, a half second here, instant feedback, etc, that all add up and make the system feel significantly faster. I never have the feeling that I'm 'waiting' for the drive.

In any event, I'm a big advocate of going scsi provided you go with the top - the x15.3. This drive is amazingly quiet and cool running. I'm also a fan of going with a cheaper IDE solution for mass storage, such as the Special Edition drives. I also don't think the price of the x15.3 are that bad anymore. The LSI card is fairly inexpensive ($80 with cable) and the drive isn't that bad for the 36gb version, which is pretty much big enough to hold all games,programs, and a good number of files.

I did a bit of research at PC Connection and found the following HDD specs:

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Seagate Cheetah 10K.6 - hard drive - 73.4 GB - SCSI Ultra320

Cache / Buffer Size: 8 MB

Spindle Speed: 10000 rpm

Average Seek Time: 4.7 ms

Data Transfer Rate: 320 MBps

Price: $559

Seagate Barracuda ATA V - hard drive - 80 GB - SATA-150

Cache / Buffer: 8 MB

Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm

Average Seek Time: 9 ms

Data Transfer Rate: 150 MBps

Price: $133

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Going by these specs, SCSI is obviously much faster than SATA (assuming there aren't any bottlenecks elsewhere in the system that limit the data transfer rate). But the speed comes at a hefty price. You could run a RAID 1 setup with two IDE HDD's for half the price of a single SCSI drive, although it wouldn't be as fast. Regardless, $600 for a SCSI drive and controller is too exorbidant for my budget. The price difference between two 40GB IDE HDD's and a single SCSI HDD and controller would cover the cost of an AiW 9700 Pro.

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Originally posted by LouIII
I did a bit of research at PC Connection and found the following HDD specs:


Going by these specs, SCSI is obviously much faster than SATA (assuming there aren't any bottlenecks elsewhere in the system that limit the data transfer rate). But the speed comes at a hefty price. You could run a RAID 1 setup with two IDE HDD's for half the price of a single SCSI drive, although it wouldn't be as fast. Regardless, $600 for a SCSI drive and controller is too exorbidant for my budget. The price difference between two 40GB IDE HDD's and a single SCSI HDD and controller would cover the cost of an AiW 9700 Pro.

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Precisely... SCSI is a lot more money than IDE.. there is a point of diminishing returns, just like going up in processor speeds in terms of price/performance. But, the title of this thread is "the BEST of the BEST" and the original poster said he had a lot of extra cash and watned pretty much the best. I think SCSI is great IF you can afford it.

Also, in the example you mentioned, the larger scsi drives, just like their IDE cousins, go up exponentially in price. 2 36 gig Seagate 10k.6 will cost you $440 at newegg vs the $600 you listed.

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Originally posted by Tripitz
Precisely... SCSI is a lot more money than IDE.. there is a point of diminishing returns, just like going up in processor speeds in terms of price/performance. But, the title of this thread is "the BEST of the BEST" and the original poster said he had a lot of extra cash and watned pretty much the best. I think SCSI is great IF you can afford it.

Also, in the example you mentioned, the larger scsi drives, just like their IDE cousins, go up exponentially in price. 2 36 gig Seagate 10k.6 will cost you $440 at newegg vs the $600 you listed.

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I was referring to my first post in this thread, "I'm getting ready to build a system..." (didn't intend to hijack the thread). But you're right about SCSI being the choice for "the best of the best" when money isn't an issue. If I were in the original poster's position, I'd probably do a SCSI RAID.

One of the most important features of SCSI is that the limit on the number of devices per channel is 15 versus 2 for IDE. I'd have to have 5 IDE controllers to handle my simple desktop SCSI configuration - 7 disk drives, 1 DVD drive, 1 CD drive and 1 scanner.

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Originally posted by Tripitz
To put some background into it, I spent about a year sitting on the fence before I went scsi. So many people say the performance boost on a desktop is not that great and pretty much unnoticeable. I've only used scsi on workstations and servers where I really needed it. In any event, I finally decided to go with a single channel card (LSI U160 controller) and 1 x15.3 drive. Despite running on a 32bit PCI bus, the transfer rates of one drive cannot max out the bus, so the limitations of the bus aren't really an issue unless you go with more than 2 drives. Even then, for desktop use, that is still a lot of bandwidth. I also went with a WD800JB Special Edition drive to store pictures and other larger files on. As to the exact results of the switch to the x15.3 as my main drive, basically everything runs faster and 'crisper'. Win2k loads significantly faster and the login procedure is dramatically reduced in load time for startup programs (norton, aim, etc). When browsing files and programs on the scsi drive, feedback and load times are almost instant. I would attrbute most of this to just the fact that the seek time on the x15.3 is ridiculously low. Other areas where I notice it is when I use explorer to browse thumbnails of pictures taken from my digital camera. Compared to the Western Digital drive, again, the Seagate is just that much faster. Its a second here, a half second here, instant feedback, etc, that all add up and make the system feel significantly faster. I never have the feeling that I'm 'waiting' for the drive.

In any event, I'm a big advocate of going scsi provided you go with the top - the x15.3. This drive is amazingly quiet and cool running. I'm also a fan of going with a cheaper IDE solution for mass storage, such as the Special Edition drives. I also don't think the price of the x15.3 are that bad anymore. The LSI card is fairly inexpensive ($80 with cable) and the drive isn't that bad for the 36gb version, which is pretty much big enough to hold all games,programs, and a good number of files.

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See... this is exactly what I've been talking about. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that you got an X15 for your system drive and a WD 800JB for your "large file" drive.


This is what I was asking earlier. I would really like to try this setup and see if it gives me a noticeable gain as you have suggested that it will.

Now... for me... the only question is, which drive do I use the SCSI for. See, the most taxing part of my set-up is the digital audio aspect. I run ProTools for multi-track recording. So I need to be reading/writing lots of tracks (wav files) at the same time. So,.. should I use the WD 800JB for the system drive and use the X15 for the Audio Files drive or vice versa?

Heck.. maybe I should just get two X15's. I'm not gonna do RAID though... I don't really need it. I'd prefer to just use a "two drive" setup. One for the system/programs and one for audio files.



WATYF

Tripitz thanks for humoring me.

WATYF if you are doing LOTSA hard drive intense work, then it would definately be good to have a SCSI drive for it.

Hell you could do something like have a smaller 15gig for system and Apps, a 36 for the files that you are playing with and then Special Edition for when you need to archieve it.

Or something like that.

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Originally posted by WATYF
See... this is exactly what I've been talking about. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that you got an X15 for your system drive and a WD 800JB for your "large file" drive.


This is what I was asking earlier. I would really like to try this setup and see if it gives me a noticeable gain as you have suggested that it will.

Now... for me... the only question is, which drive do I use the SCSI for. See, the most taxing part of my set-up is the digital audio aspect. I run ProTools for multi-track recording. So I need to be reading/writing lots of tracks (wav files) at the same time. So,.. should I use the WD 800JB for the system drive and use the X15 for the Audio Files drive or vice versa?

Heck.. maybe I should just get two X15's. I'm not gonna do RAID though... I don't really need it. I'd prefer to just use a "two drive" setup. One for the system/programs and one for audio files.

WATYF

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Well.. as I mentioned, when playing around with digital photos, etc, the scsi drive is definitely faster on the hard drive intensive duties. When I'm doing work or editing stuff, I usually do it on the scsi drive. The western digital drive is more of a storage drive, although I use it for games and stuff that I really don't really think needs that extra oomph. Overall system speed will increase though if you go with scsi. I think the key is to remember going for the mid sized scsi drives and just load up on them as the larger sized ones carry a huge premium.

Ultimately, going scsi will cost you a couple of hundred more. If you are going to blow 2-2.5k on a top of the line system, that extra bit doesn't seem so bad. I'd like to think scsi drives are a bit more future proof (at least the u320 ones) so I hope to keep them around a lot longer.

O.K. How's this.

Due to the SCSI change and a couple other updates, this is what I'm currently looking at.


CPU: XP 3000+
Mobo: Asus A7N8X
RAM: (2) 256MB CorsairXMS PC3200
HDD1: Cheetah X15 36LP 36.7GB
HDD2: Cheetah X15 36LP 36.7GB
SCSI: LSI Ultra 160 Controller
Video: Radeon 9700 Pro
DVD: Pioneer 106S
CD-RW: Lite-On LTR-52246S 52X
Case: Koolance PC2-601BLW
PSU: Nexus NX-3000 300W


I just hope those drives aren't too noisy. I heard that the 36LPs weren't that loud,... maybe even comparable to some IDEs.

I wonder if that 300W is enough? They don't have Nexus's in any other Wattage, which kinda sucks, but I need a really quiet PSU.


WATYF

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Originally posted by WATYF
O.K. How's this.

Due to the SCSI change and a couple other updates, this is what I'm currently looking at.


CPU: XP 3000+
Mobo: Asus A7N8X
RAM: (2) 256MB CorsairXMS PC3200
HDD1: Cheetah X15 36LP 36.7GB
HDD2: Cheetah X15 36LP 36.7GB
SCSI: LSI Ultra 160 Controller
Video: Radeon 9700 Pro
DVD: Pioneer 106S
CD-RW: Lite-On LTR-52246S 52X
Case: Koolance PC2-601BLW
PSU: Nexus NX-3000 300W


I just hope those drives aren't too noisy. I heard that the 36LPs weren't that loud,... maybe even comparable to some IDEs.

I wonder if that 300W is enough? They don't have Nexus's in any other Wattage, which kinda sucks, but I need a really quiet PSU.


WATYF

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The Seagage x15.3's are quiet at idle. They aren't loud accessing, but you should be aware that they do click away at idle from time to time. Its not a full blow clicking and it is pretty quiet, but its definitely there and something you should be aware of. I believe it does it to reduce heat on the heads.

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Originally posted by WATYF
...
I wonder if that 300W is enough? They don't have Nexus's in any other Wattage, which kinda sucks, but I need a really quiet PSU.


WATYF

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Both my Crystal Ball and Tarot Cards told me NO.

First of all you sound lazy. If you are smart enough to use this forum you can figure out all that info by yourself. Actully im just jealous cuz i had the exact same post in a different forum but didnt nearly get the ammount of replies. So i did all the work myself, with a few suggestions i got in replys. All that said and done I have one suggestion, it's to do with mobo/memory type.

Now I wasnt gonna spend 4 days reading the whole of the posts so this might not be news to you.

SCREW RDRAM! It's not that great plus your gonna be left HIGH AND DRY.
SCREW dual DDR it'd too new and really isnt "better"
SCREW serial ATA I just finished reading about it like five minutes ago.

I say go with a mobo that supports DDR, get some high quality memory too. GET some Western Digital SE HD's, GET your 9700 pro, buy an Audigy 2 + some kick *** speakers and I promise you will be happy. If not you can give it to me :)

See all that crap is really worthless right now, you have just read too much info and cant make up your mind. The way i see it is that a new mobo cost pennies compared to a new system, so when dual DDR really kick in and proves it's self then you can justify spendin a couple bucks on it, and you can use the same sticks of memory. :)

I just bought a new system similar and it ROCKS!!!!!

I bet it will be the best rig on your block. Plus it will be perfect to upgrade later.

Why buy the now obsolete Ultra 160 SCSI controller?
You should get an Ultra 320 SCSI controller with twice the speed.

Because it was my understanding that the PCI bus on the A7N8X couldn't make full use of the U320. I figured I might as well just get the next best thing. It's not like I'm gonna be dissappointed by a Cheetah 15X running on Ultra160. :p


WATYF