What's the real difference between SCSI and IDE? I know SCSI cost more but what's the benefit in having a SCSI Harddisk or CDrom? How much more performance will SCSI have against IDE?<P>Two scenarios:<P>50x CDRom (IDE) Vs a 40x (SCSI)<P>and<P>7,200rpm IDE Vs a 7,200rpm SCSI<P>Does anyone know the real difference apart from price?<P>Thanks<P>
Where to start with a question like that! It is a subject suitable for an entire article and not a simple thread. Anyway, I`ll bite...<P>IDE is a 40 pin bastardized SCSI. IDE is a simpler, cheaper, and less intelligent SCSI. Two things that IDE does away with over SCSI is multitasking (multi-threaded) and command-queing. Win98 doesn`t really do multitasking and thusly you won`t see the SCSI benefit. Another trade-off is in protocol overhead, where IDE has less steps before it transfers data from the disk. In other words, SCSI is slower getting going, but generally faster going. There is also the 2 device limit with IDE (only one, if you`re into performance) and SCSI can have 7 or 15 devices on one chain, depending on the flavour.<P>Subjectively SCSI feels more solid. Listening to CD`s over each bus, SCSI had no dropout problems, but on my IDE rig, it was unlistenable. And I`ve never seen a SCSI burner make a coaster. Generally people do video editing (and audio editing) with SCSI disks. File servers will almost always use a SCSI RAID array. Anything 'mission critical' (who`s to say that Q3A isn`t mission critical!?) will use SCSI. Some say setup is always a problem with SCSI; well babies, don`t you panic, as I believe that SCSI is more logical and simpler than IDE`s Master/Slave S&M thing. Should I put my leather on now or later?<P>If you can afford SCSI then buy SCSI and don`t ask why. Just feel superior.<P>Dude,<BR>Brann Mitchell
Thanks Brann!<P>Firstly, you saying that I can feel the difference with a SCSI CDrom? If that's the case I'll be hunting for one now.<P>Secondly, I have a 7200rpm HD and maybe that'll do for the moment? The trouble is gettng my stuff "Ghost Cpoied" onto the new HD. I've done Norton Ghost copy from one IDE HD to another but never copied from an IDE to a SCSI HD do you know if the process is similar or do I need to reformat from scratch?<P>Once again, thanks dude.
Well, I didn`t exactly answer your question. I personally think that SCSI is more better than an IDE. The days of SCSI being faster than IDE are over however. Many IDE drives are a bit faster than an equivalent X-rated SCSI one. Check out <A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com" TARGET=_blank>http://www.storagereview.com</A> for a whole bunch of benchmarks. As far as brands I`m happy with, think Plextor and Pioneer. I love the slot loading Pioneer DVD drives.<P>You also metion that you already have a 7200RPM IDE drive. If you can score some pretty righteous deals on a SCSI hard drive (and controller) then go for it. Otherwise, don`t bother. Your IDE drive, unless it`s getting too small, is just fine! Also, more good news, Ghost won`t care what drives are connected with what. You have to remember that SCSI is pretty big business and predates IDE (why does Linux support SCSI out of the box?), so you can bet that Ghost will support it, too.<P>Hope that helps more than it confuses!<P>Happy New Year<BR>Brann Mitchell
Uh, and a couple of quick things, CD-ROMS come in a couple of flavours, CLV and CAV. Good-old-fashioned audio CD`s are CLV, which means that the disk slows down as it reads outer tracks to keep the data rate the same. CAV spins the disk the same speed so that the data-rate gets faster in the outer tracks. A CAV drive will be faster than a CLV drive, so watch out for that. TrueX drives are CLV. Plextor drives are CAV.<P>And if you`re running Win98 you might want to Nuke it and start a-fresh. While Windows may be Ok with the change of hardware, you know I just don`t trust it that much.<P>HNY, Dude,<BR>Brann Mitchell
Thanks guy.<P>I am set on buying a Yamaha CRW2100 (16x10x40). Can I assume that this will replace and out perform my Asus 40x CDrom because its a 40x SCSI Vs a 40x IDE?
