rosa@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Berthier Ribeiro Araujo Neto) (05/17/91)
What is the difference in performance between these two? Is it worth to spend extra money in a SCSI drive? What does IDE stand for? Thanks in advance, --Berthier PS: These questions have probably been answered here before, and I apologize for repeating them.
parsons@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Scott Parish) (05/17/91)
In comp.sys.ibm.pc you write: >What is the difference in performance between these two? >Is it worth to spend extra money in a SCSI drive? What does >IDE stand for? There is a nice article about hard drives and controllers in the May 91 issue of Compute! magazine. Briefly, I'll tell you what the article says: Disclaimer: This is summarized from the article, most of it is directly quoted, some is slightly paraphrased. You should read the full article to gain a complete picture of what type of drive and interface is best for you. Interface Transfer Rate Encoding Method ST506 250K-750K / sec MFM or RLL SCSI 1-3MB / sec RLL ESDI 1-3MB / sec RLL IDE 1MB / sec ARLL ARRL = Advanced Run Length Limited, allows 50% more data than standard RLL and 100% more than MFM. IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics, like SCSI, is an interface standard that puts some controller functions on the drive itself. IDE, however, only offers ST506 performance. SCSI = Small Computer System Interface is an interface standard that puts most of the controller functions on the drive itself. SCSI also allows as many as 8 devices to be daisychained together. ST506= An interface that supports transfer speeds of about 500K per second and is limited to a hard disk of 127MB or smaller. On SCSI drives: SCSI's are neat because the interface lets you daisychain up to 8 devices. [...] While SCSI is probably a better interface in the long run, ESDI is currently better suited to the DOS environment and probably a better bet for now. On IDE drives: You can't maintain IDE with software. You're not supposed to low-level format it, and in fact the author has seen a low-level format damage a drive. IDE is not really a standard interface. In fact one data-recovery firm reports that there are 25 different kinds of IDE. There's something a bit too disposable about these drives; they're basically reliable, but you're helpless if they do develop a problem. [...] Right now, be careful. Recommendations: (These are not my recommendations, mind you.) [...] When buying computers, think twice about IDE drives. Again IDE is a good idea, and you'll save a few bucks, but it robs you of a lot of disk maintenance options. -- Scott Parish a.k.a. parsons@matt.ksu.ksu.edu ---------------------------------------------- "Some people quitely reveal in the manner of the meek, Some people shout the way they feel to a radical degree... Some people speak with subtleness and don't rely on words at all." -- MWS