[ale] EIDE vs SCSI

[Hat]

On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Dan Newcombe wrote:

> > Okay, I know this will start wars, but I'm looking for opinions on Ultra
> > DMA EIDE vs SCSI. From what I can tell, the throughput for the new EIDE
> 
> Unless they are doing major heavy work, a single user (ie home) machine is
> not gonna notice that much difference.

It really depends on what the machine gets used for. If you open up 
a word processor, type, save, print, close, open up the next app, 
you really aren't putting any strain on anything. 

Granted, SCSI will save you a second here or there, it's barely noticable 
(but it is). The UDMA drives might have a similar throughput but access 
time is much more important for use like this. SCSI gives you better 
access time as well as better throughput with less strain on everything 
else (there's a reason why a good scsi card costs more than a normal 
motherboard).

I generally am either ripping a cd to wav or encoding a wav to mp3 at any 
given time. At the same time, I'm playing an mp3. At the same time I have 
8 other things open, with at least 3 of them being something biggish.

While I'll admit that my not be "typical home use," SCSI makes all 
the difference in the world for me.

> However, a nice thing about SCSI is you can hook more devices up to it
> than an IDE bus :)

And I'm using one less IRQ than if I was going IDE :)

Don't discredit SCSI just because it's a "home user," not a "server." 
The one of the most important things to take into consideration (other 
than price maybe) is what a machine is going to be expected to do. 
"Home user" and "server" are EXTREMELY vague catagories. My "home machine" 
needs more power than my "mail server."

-Hat (I could go on and on but I think I've said enough)