To: plug@lists.q-linux.com
Subject: Re: [plug] [OT] IDE vs. SCSI revisited
User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i
From: Rick Moen (rick@linuxmafia.com)
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:07:16 -0700

Quoting Ian C. Sison (ian.s@qsr.com.ph):

> This is so true, and was my bottom line in my previous past posts.
> Not only do you have the more expensive drive, you have to get an
> expensive controller as well, as motherboards don't usually come with
> SCSI onboard.

Quoting a post to elsewhere:

(1) Tekram DC-395UW PCI host adapter with Symbios (LSILogic) chipset, US $71 at the first mail-order place I checked. There are better ones; that one's OK.

I don't often look up prices of host adapters, because I make a point of favouring parts that can be usefully recycled through multiple generations of machines. (There are a couple of unused Adaptec AHA-2940UW cards in the garage, I think.)

(2) Hard drives these days come in basically one size, called "bigger than you can fill, and bigger than you can economically back up". Your $200 buys the same size in either SCSI or ATA ("IDE"): both "bigger than (et al.)", with a greater amount of excess-more-than-I-can-use space in the ATA case.

Of course, you might have the world's largest pr0n collection, or a complete collection of Farscape DIVXes, or something like that. In which case, some n>1 of ATA drives on a 3Ware Escalade will indeed be just the ticket (while you brood over your lack of backup).