🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 18 Dec 1997 04:41:20, nospam_mikwon@ebtech.net (Michael 
Wong) wrote:
 
> What's serious speed?  Ron Reaugh thinks that serious speed is a high
> transfer rate irrespective of seek times, latencies, and all of the
> multitasking optimizations in SCSI drives and controllers.  But the
> problem with this argument is that any application which truly NEEDS
> high disk performance is also going to be one of those "rare"
> applications that needs SCSI's particular advantages, even on a client
> workstation.  The rest of the garden-variety apps don't need SCSI's
> particular advantages, but they don't even need high-end EIDE.

I couldn't think of speaking for Ron.  There are "rare" 
applications where the worst case performance must be guaranteed.
 Very few WIntel workstation users see this.  I've added my *one*
counter-example to this before - DV.  This requires some serious 
SCSI UW performance.  It cannot be done no-how, no-way with IDE. 
This in now way implies that SCSI UW is "better" than IDE for the
majority of users.  There are specific applications where SCSI is
better.  The common desktop is not one.

> >Sure, this is a server.  This is not what was being discussed 
> >(unless I cross-threaded things again).  Anyone who would argure 
> >against SCSI (vs. IDE) for servers is nuts.  On the desktop 
> >things reverse.
> 
> This argument has been continuing for some time now, and I would SORT
> OF agree except to revise your distinctions to group high-end
> workstations and servers together for SCSI suitability, and low-end
> workstations for EIDE suitability.  EIDE's great for its design
> purpose (low-end workstations), but the "ultimate wet dream
> workstation" of every knowledgeable power user comes with SCSI
> (probably a pair of Cheetahs on a DPT caching RAID controller), even
> though it's not a server.

No, I will disagree.  There are some corners of performance where
SCSI excells.  These corners are not common in WIntel 
workstations yet.  In WinStone97 I can show that the best SCSI UW
drive is not significantly better than the best IDE drive (a few 
percent - maybe).  For the 2-3X price differential, it's not 
worth it for *any* commercial desktop.  The drives I'm talking 
about cost more than most systems today.

> Is it NECESSARY for most people?  Of course not, but neither is a
> 300MHz CPU, or 128MB of SDRAM, or an 8MB video card.  That doesn't
> change the fact that it's BETTER if you can afford it, even on a
> single-user workstation (just like all of those things).  Let's face
> it- for the "average workstation" that Ron Reaugh is talking about, an
> obsolete P133 with 32MB of RAM, a 2MB video card, and a 2.5GB EIDE
> hard disk is perfectly adequate.

Again, I'm not prepared to put words into Ron's mouth.  I have 
run tests showing that the performance gain for SCSI drive is 
insignificant for business workstation apps.  I also know there 
are specialty applications that demand the best SCSI UW drives 
available.  I use both.  I tailor the system for the application 
though.  SCSI is *not *better* than IDE.   

----
  Keith R. Williams
  krw@ibm.net