Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] IDE and SCSI etc

["Jim Bradley" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

All of the reviews that I've ever read about scsi vs. ide have stated that on a
user desktop, there's not generally going to be a noticible difference, only on
a server with multiple user requests occurring simultaneously.  The greatest
benefit that I've had with SCSI hasn't been mentioned (or I missed it), and
that's the freeing up of interrupts with multiple devices, and the ability to
daisy chain multiple drives and devices. I had a machine that I ran for a while
that was interrupt challenged, as I had cards in each slot, and they all wanted
an interrupt or two. By disabling the IDE ports and using SCSI, I was able to
have 3 hard drives, 2 cdroms (one was a burner, the other plain), and a
scanner, and only using one interrupt. In addition to cost (though they're more
expensive, most SCSI drives have a 5 year warranty, while most IDE/ATAPI drives
only give one year) another problem that can be a PIA is that many
distributions don't compile the linux kernel with builtin scsi, but only
modular scsi. This can give you a kernel panic error at bootup until you either
recompile the kernel yourself, or you run mkiinitrd to create a new ramboot
file.


> I tried locating the two pieces of data on two different disks with two 
> different IDE controllers, and the results were spectacular - a five fold speed 
> increase in the application - just as good as using a single SCSI disk.

Jim Bradley -- Maryville, MO USA
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