SCSI Raid - Worth it?

monkeypants · 18 May 2006 at 22:34

I'm toying with the idea of getting two 18Gb 15K SCSI drives and a raid card. Trouble is, I'm limited to PCI. So, should I go for this, or try and get two cheap 36Gb raptors?

PureAppleJuice · 18 May 2006 at 22:37

Well, the SATA2 WD Raptors are equally fast, saves you buying a PCI card. The price you pay for all of that you could probably get a 74gb Raptor, or maybe 2.

monkeypants · 18 May 2006 at 22:39

The drives would be £20ish each so the SCSI setup wouldn't be expensive.

When are the new 74Gb Raptors coming out? The ones with 16mb cache?

PureAppleJuice · 18 May 2006 at 22:48

Not sure

How much is the PCI card?

Indy500 · 18 May 2006 at 22:49

Probably cheap as well, judging by the cost of my Adaptec (£11.50).

PureAppleJuice · 18 May 2006 at 22:50

Oops, well, now I look like a fool

Last time I looked at SCSI was a couple of years back, so i'll leave this thread be now

Indy500 · 18 May 2006 at 22:52

Dont buy it new, is what I'll say. Too pricey. Nothing wrong with used SCSI as its reliable\long lasting compared to regular SATA\IDE drives.

monkeypants · 18 May 2006 at 22:58

Used is best, but would the PCI bus limit me meaning I don't get full performance from the drives?

Indy500 · 18 May 2006 at 22:59

monkeypants said:
Used is best, but would the PCI bus limit me meaning I don't get full performance from the drives?

Dont recall many drives in RAID exceeding 133 megabytes per second.

rpstewart · 19 May 2006 at 09:16

sr4470 said:
Dont recall many drives in RAID exceeding 133 megabytes per second.

A pair of drives no, but a decent SCSI RAID5 array will run at well over 250Mb/s. I've seen 400Mb/s before but that's from a fibre channel SAN.

utherpendragon · 22 May 2006 at 10:14

I'd recommend actually hearing 2 15k disks running before you commit to it. In a home PC I feel 10k in raid arrays are loud enough

cavemanoc · 22 May 2006 at 11:19

Another vote for 2nd hand Scsi setups here - they really are awesome if you want quick access in games and on the desktop. There are several problems at the moment, the larges one being that the PCI interface is horribly limiting , and though you still get good seek times, the throughput is completely saturated by one drive, never mind 2/5/20!

Have a peak at the thread I set up a while ago - might answer a few questions!

Scsi - the future?

I wouldn't go back - but then I do accept that they have issues (noise/size/cost) But then I think they are worth all that and more!