Re: [TCLUG:12134] SCSI vs. IDE

[Chris McKinley <lamfada@mailhub.lugh.net>]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Eric M. Hopper wrote:

> 	What's this list's take on this issue?  I've heard from various
> people that even though IDE technically has a higher bulk transfer rate
> with ATA-66, SCSI still outperforms it when you're in a real-world
> environment.
>

The disk transfer rate is limited not by the interface, but by the spindle
speed.  The bus transfer rate then dictates the number of drives you can
have before you get I/O contention.  IDE, even ATA66, can only fill the
bus for the size of the drive buffers, whereas a properly striped RAID
setup can keep sustained data flows.  Other advantages are that SCSI
supports up to 15 devices / channel, SCSI supports other devices than
storage, and SCSI uses less than half the CPU resources of IDE.  
 
-Chris McKinley