Will this Maxtor SCSI320 10Krpm work for a home desktop?

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100771

for $135, it is not that far from SATA raptors in price..

do you think it could be better getting this scsi instead of SATA 10K raptors or ATA RAID 0?

What a good SCSI320 controller can go with this drive?

I never SAW a scsi drive before, so you think this should be OK for home use (is it noisy...etc.)?

Any other recommendations/tips are appreciated..


Cheers...

I've run SCSI in my personal computers, no problems, I just didn't like the hassle of SCSI, then again, I was 12. I say go for it, I don't know why they're so cheap, those seek times seem amazing. .2mseconds faster than a74g Raptor. And about 1fullMsecond faster than the 36gig counterpart.

The only issue will b the cards and their cost most of the RAID 320 are PCI-X or 64bit/66mhz but some / most of those cards can be used in a 32bit/33mhz slot as well. I am using the LSI ~ LSI20320 (once I get a GFX card in from newegg) you can get them on eBay for $70-80 and it has built in RAID 0 but do you really need that much?

Pretty much every SCSI320 card is going to be 64-bit, but they're all notched to fit in 32-bit slots. You have to make sure the card length and the extra pins won't interfere with anything on the board, though.

Most 10k drives made in the last year will be relatively quiet. Even a lot of the recent 15k drives are not noisy. A great place to check out reviews for various SCSI drives is

http://www.storagereview.com

They almost always have a sentence in their reviews about the loudness of the drive.

So even if the card is 64bit, and can physically fit into my 32bit slot, but will it recognize that it is in a 32bit slot and will ADJUST its operation for 32bit?

What I mean is, beside the physical size ...etc., is the card ready electrically to operate at 32bit?

Yes, they'll automatically operate in 32-bit mode if they're specified as backwards compatible.

You may take a performance hit if you, say, run two channel in 32-bit, but that's just because you have half the interface bandwidth.

All these companies just don't want to spend the money making and marketing two different models of the same card for 32-bit and a 64-bit slots.

See the sig for specs, but for sheer performance, I highly recommend SCSI. Modern LVD-SCSI drives are every bit as easy to setup as SATA. I've build several systems with both raptors and U320 SCSI boot and storage drives in the past couple of months and the SCSI systems always excel in performance.

Just be aware that SCSI cards can get pretty spendy. As Khasra mentioned, check storage review to read reviews on the noise level of your drive VS that of a raptor and to learn about recommended SCSI adaptor cards.

BTW, that looks like a great price!

(1)- I saw before people talk about 68-pin vs. x-pins or something related to SCSI, which one should I get? 68-pin? and WHY ?

(2)- what is LVD (as the above maxtor drive)?

With SCA(80 pin) drives you will either need a backplane or an SCA adapter to connect it to the cable(68 pin). Many dedicated SCSI users despise the adapters since lower quality ones can cause signalling problems and/or reduce the negotiated sync rate for the subsystem through excessive capacitance. Generally, if you are only going with a couple of drives, you will be fine using adapters. It's easier to just get the 68pin drives, as they require fewer connections to troubleshoot and less clutter in the case.

LVD is low voltage differential and refers to the signal level on the bus. Some old drives and controllers are HVD and these are not compatible with LVD devices.