want to use fast SCSI for main drive - recommendations?

[wquiles]

I want to start saving money and start looking for good buys on a SCSI controller and SCSI drive for my dually (see sig) - this SCSI would replace my main OS drive and also my IDE RAID 0 array (SCSI controller to use same 64-bit slot currently used by IDE RAID card).

The drive will be just for the OS, so a 30-38 GB would be plenty/enough. Maybe even smaller (18-20GB would work as well). I am going to have 2 partitions: Win2K and Xandros 2.0 (Linux).

I want HIGH PERFORMANCE, so definitely looking only at 15K drives. However, I am willing to sacrifice a little bit to remain affordable :)

My workstation has 64bit/66Mhz slots available, so I want to take advantage of those. I would preffer the U320 interface for maximum performance.

With that in mind, what controllers and SCSI drives recommendations can you give me?

Thanks much in advance!

[Xaotic]

Use an LSI controller for the HBA and my preference is the Fujitsu MAS series drives, though the Maxtor Atlas 15Ks score slightly higher. Head to head comparison here:

http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=10&testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=232&devID_1=237&devCnt=2

Whether you need U320 would be a matter of choice. For low numbers of drives on each channel, it doesn't make much difference between U160 and U320, but as the number of drives gets higher, it can make a huge difference.

[wquiles]

thanks dude - I will start saving money for this :)

[cccary]

Can you confrim that the LSI u160 is a 66mhz card?

[Xaotic]

The LSIU160 is a 64/33 controller, specs are here:

http://www.lsilogic.com/files/docs/marketing_docs/storage_stand_prod/habs/valueline/u160pb.pdf

To get a 64/66 card, it typically moves pricing to the 150.00 and up range. At that point U320, would probably be a better option as the pricing is similar and upgrade possibilities are better.

[cccary]

Xaotic,
Ideally, I would like to get a 66 mhz scsi or serial ATA card, as this will not slow the bus between the K7D Master's north and southbridge down to 33 mhz.

Which would you recommend as a 66mhz sulotion: U320, or serial ATA raid, such as the Promise Fastrak S150 TX4?

[diehrd]

I would be intrested in to know as well !

[Xaotic]

It depends on your data needs and budget. For boot drives, I prefer SCSI, but for large quantities of data SATA is much more cost effective. Given the K7D's(or actually the MPX chipset's) limitations on the 32/33 slots, I'd probably have to recommend SATA for general purposes, especially considering the need to allocate space for cooling AGP cards and the position of the slots.

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by Xaotic
Use an LSI controller for the HBA and my preference is the Fujitsu MAS series drives, though the Maxtor Atlas 15Ks score slightly higher. Head to head comparison here:

http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=10&testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=232&devID_1=237&devCnt=2

Whether you need U320 would be a matter of choice. For low numbers of drives on each channel, it doesn't make much difference between U160 and U320, but as the number of drives gets higher, it can make a huge difference.
Word. I've got the 73gb Atlas 15k here. It was either that or the MAS.

[rxtrom]

I am in the samw boat as wquiles, I am looking for a SCSI boot drive too i like the atlas, but now i am concerned about which controler card to get. the U160 would serve my needs because i am only using one drive, also what is hte major difference between 64/33 and 64/66 i also have the k7d master


wquiles- i keep running into you

[donny_paycheck]

LSI U160 will do fine. A single drive won't come close to saturating the U160 bus except during cache transfers, which don't matter much anyway.

As far as the 64/66 or 64/33 issue goes, what else do you have in the 64-bit slots that needs to run at 66 mhz? The LSI will pull the entire bus down to 33mhz, but that probably won't mean much to you in terms of performance, unless you've got a gigabit ethernet card running full tilt 100% of the time in the other slot, or something.

[cccary]

donny_paycheck,

33/32bit or 66/64bit:
This is exactly the question that I am struggling with. In AMD's AMD-762 System controller data sheet, page 23 it states: [http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/con..._docs/24416.pdf]
"The AMD-762 system controller provides the three 66-MHz
clocks required for the Southbridge and the two PCI bus slots
in this mode. If a 33-MHz-only card is inserted in one of the
66-MHz PCI slots, then the M66EN signal is deasserted, which
causes the AMD-762 system controller to drive 33 MHz on the
PCI_66CLK[2:0] pins."

So when you put a 33 card in the 66 bus, you also slow down the bus speed between the north and southbridge to 33mhz since the north and south bridges are one the same bus as the 66 slots. (See the technical architechture in the same document). This, in my understanding was the major improvement between the 760MP and 762 MPX chipsets.

So, in your opinion, how important is it for the North and South brides to connect at the maximum speed possible?

My own experience is this: Initially, I had a 33mhz Silicon Image controller card in Raid 0 in a 66 slot. When I changed to a Promise Fasttrak100 TX2 66 mhz card, my system performance seemed to increase although I do not have any benchmarks to verify this or give you exact data. (What would you suggest I use to benchmark this as I would be very interested to know the exact answer to this question.)

Ultimately, why even have 66 slots on the board if you are not going to use the capability provided by them is what I am wondering?

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by cccary
So, in your opinion, how important is it for the North and South brides to connect at the maximum speed possible?
If I tried to answer this question all I could do is guess. The last AMD dual chipset I've used was the 760MPX, so I didn't have to worry about it. I don't know.

Try posting and asking about this in the SMP forum area too, because you might get a better answer than here.