Hard drives

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:43 pm

Which drives to use.... IDE / SATA / SCSI

Out of the few machines that I have running, I have one configured with (2) Western Digital 36 GB 8MB 360GD Raptor SATA 10K RPM (WD360GD), another with (2) Western Digital 74 GB SATA 10K Raptor (WD740GD). The rest of the machines that I have are set up with ide drives.

Here's links for where I purchased them from:
This link is for the 74GB drives:
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant ... HardDrives

This link is fir the 36GB drives:
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant ... HardDrives

And here's the link for both their IDE & SATA drives:
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant ... HardDrives

Hope that helps you out Dann and others as well, in answering that question about drives. The prices for these drives have come down a few bucks since I purchased them too.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:24 am

I'm getting to the point where I hate IDE drives, I can't stand the size of the old-style IDE cables and the rounded ones also drive me crazy sometimes.
What I really like about SATA is the flexibility of the cables, much much eaisier to manage, and at the same time the technology is surperior.

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 4:24 am

What drive you choose will depend very much on your needs.

SCSI is still the best and quickest, but also the most expensive. Great for servers and mission critical apps - most manufacturers will also still give a 5 year warranty on them, whereas SATA and PATA are likely to be 1 or 3 years.

SATA is the new kid on the block. Drives are reasonably priced, and the speeds are getting quicker, although we're only partly along the way on the roadmap. They're hotpluggable, and the cables are better. But you may need to get a card for the ports, and adaptors for the power.

It's worth bearing in mind that most of the initial SATA drives on the market were actually no different from PATA drives - they were exactly the same drives, but just with a different connector on the drive, thus there were no performance advantages, merely 'futureproofing'.

PATA is going out, but it's helluva cheap at the moment. If you want lots of really cheap storage, then it's hard to beat.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:42 am

mrben wrote:What drive you choose will depend very much on your needs.

SCSI is still the best and quickest, but also the most expensive. Great for servers and mission critical apps - most manufacturers will also still give a 5 year warranty on them, whereas SATA and PATA are likely to be 1 or 3 years.

Another thing I've noticed about SCSI drives is that they to be smaller in szie compared to a SATA drive.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:06 am

I use PATA IDE drives just because thats's what works in my machines. The next time I upgrade or build a machine, I'll probably use SATA. I'll agree with Mr Ben that there is no real performance advantage with SATA (despite what the package says).

I'd also mention that 10K RPM drives probably don't give better performance unless you're running a server. These and the 15K drives are usually tuned for low latency so they can access lots of files quickly. If you have a desktop machine which is more likely to only access 1 file at a time, the low latency won't help much, and you may get lower throughput.

If you're doing striped RAID you'll get better performance, but 7.2K drives will do that just fine.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 10:13 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: Another thing I've noticed about SCSI drives is that they to be smaller in szie compared to a SATA drive.

SCSI is generally a server technology, so you build up arrays of drives to get the storage you need. At higher spindle speeds in server drives there is a lot more heat. Fewer platters means less heat, but also less capacity. This means more drives to buy, but also more redundancy.

In a server you want high reliability, with cost being less of a concern. Lots of small drives in a RAID is what works.

In a desktop, you want the biggest drive for the lowest cost, which is what you get with IDE (generally).

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 12:07 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: Another thing I've noticed about SCSI drives is that they to be smaller in szie compared to a SATA drive.
SCSI is generally a server technology, so you build up arrays of drives to get the storage you need. At higher spindle speeds in server drives there is a lot more heat. Fewer platters means less heat, but also less capacity. This means more drives to buy, but also more redundancy.

In a server you want high reliability, with cost being less of a concern. Lots of small drives in a RAID is what works.

In a desktop, you want the biggest drive for the lowest cost, which is what you get with IDE (generally).

Absolutely SCSI is a server technology, but for my desktop I need relieability AND at least 250 - 300 GB (eehhmmmmBitehhmmTorrentehhhmmmm) in size, and you know, for a desktop just add a few good fans and you're set.
I've just purchased a good SATA controller from Promise (SATAII150 TX4), that one has exellenct Linux support by the way, so I won't be buying anymore IDE drives, SATA is so much better IMHO!