SCSI or SATA?

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:22 am

Ok,
after reading the previous thread about which DAW, got me to thinking....
which drive is better? economics aside, never mind the bang for buck etc, in a scope system are SCSI better than SATA or vice versa?

Does the fact that SCSI use PCI bandwidth make a difference to scope cards?
Does the slower 7200 rpm speed of the SATA make any difference?
etc..

Or are the solid state drives better?

I guess Im asking for an open discussion on the merits of various storage devices on a DAWg.

Reason I bring this up, is that my DAW is currently 'in the shop' and has 3 SCSI drives and 1 SATA and Im just wondering about the effectivness of the SCSIs maybe I should replace one with a SATA or solid state drive? Just after opinions..

Thanks

Post by **garyb** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:36 am

i just did a test on a new machine and recorded 20 tracks while playing back 20, and then played back all 40 without any hiccup(record and playback time of about 15minutes). according to Sonar's meter, drive usage averaged at 17% with peaks at 40%. this is with a 250gb wd 7200rpm SATA drives with 16mb cache. SATA is more than sufficient. add to that SCSI's use of the pci bus and SCSI's cost makes no sense...

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:22 am

Aaaahhh OK.

thats cool. Out of interest how does that stack up against an ATA drive. Im all interested in this now.!!

Well as I mentioned, I already got the SCSI drives

so the cost is irellevant

. But I can get other drives cheap enough, I mentioned my most excellent BiL before (my computerguy)

So is it fair to say that the cache size of the drive is more important than the actual speed, so a SATA with a 16 meg cache would equal or surpass, in performance terms, a SCSI with a smaller Cache size?

obviously there is the issue with SCSI of PCI bandwidth. Is it noticable in a 1,2 or three card system?

What about the solid state drives has any one tested them at all??

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:57 pm

from another thread

stardust wrote:what kind of reliabilty are we talking about when it comes to SCSI vs SATA ?

Both are HD, both can die.

Both need backup, and both can be setup as RAID for those that need high availability beyond normal backup.

...

This is indeed true.

As I said, my comp was recently ' in the shop' I had it back this morning. My C drive was fried. Completely...lost all the data and everything. It was a SCSI

I now have it set up with a brand new 300gig SATA

Right now however, Im left with the labourious task of reinstalling and setting eveything up correctly....great

Im glad it was only a couple of weeks ago that I backed up most of my important files to the other comp.... But still.... Im bound to not have something

Ahh well... never mind..... I got it back and it runs It all works out in the end

Post by **garyb** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:50 pm

i believe astro did some experiments with SSDs quite a while ago and proclaimed them not quite ready. they're cheaper and bigger now, but still pretty small compared to conventional drives. they're quiet anyway....

you better believe that scsi on the pci bus will eat bandwidth, especially with big projects and 3 cards.

yes, the cache is a big part of performance. there ARE 10,000rpm sata drives, but yes, you're better off with a 7,200rpm drive and a 16mb cache than a 10,000rpm drive and a 4mb cache. i haven't had problems with ata drives 7,200rpm with 8mb cache since ditching scsi 6-7 years ago...

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:22 pm

Thanks

now with the PCI a little clearer, as soon as Im all up n running properly, Im gonna see if I can get that 16th Masterverb out now then

15 has been fine but PCI overflow with 16. But still 15 is respectable.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:39 pm

well then i wouldn't say that the scsi load was significant in this case.

15 masterverbs indicates plenty of bandwidth. of course, if the scsi controller isn't on the pci bus, then it really won't affect pci resources.....

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:52 am

garyb wrote:i believe astro did some experiments with SSDs quite a while ago and proclaimed them not quite ready. they're cheaper and bigger now, but still pretty small compared to conventional drives. they're quiet anyway...

well, actually I'm using a 1GB Sandisk CF drive with integrated ATA plug as the system disk in my PIII Tualatin box for > year.

Guessing from the date of manufacturing the memory must be fairly slow, but the interface is quite fast.
My second drive is a Transcend 4GB (labeled 266x) sitting on an ATA to CF converter plug and it's the first one of this type with DMA access.
The Sandisk was 150 Euro for 1GB, the Transcends are 80 Euro for 4 GB.
but those drives aren't completely silent - there's no spinning noise, but you clearly hear the access. A quality notebook drive isn't much louder if at all

cheers, Tom

kylie · Post by **kylie** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:07 pm

stardust wrote:hear the access to a CF ? you mean the scuttling electrons ?

ah well, I'm not the only one doubting that...

Post by **garyb** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:09 pm

i can hear 'em in my electric heater...

Post by **hubird** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:23 pm

time to take action then

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:58 am

righty, right - I will post a sample then

pollux · Post by **pollux** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:16 am

stardust wrote: So yes, the SCSI times are over.
This was and is expensive server technology.
PATA and SATA drives have same performance meanwhile at lower cost.

Sorry, but NO... SCSI still has a long way to live (through SAS of course).
The brute performance might be similar, but the transfer with SCSI/SAS is much more effective and with less errors and loss, therefore giving a better absolute bandwidth.
Also SCSI/SAS are far more reliable than SATA/PATA drives, because they are built from ground up for enterprise class use, 24x7 servers and 99.999 availability.
I've seen many many SATA/PATA fry up with "normal" use, whereas I had to replace maybe 2 or 3 SCSI/SAS drives out of hundreds of them under 24x7 highly intensive use.

stardust wrote:Both need backup

Of course.. no matter the reliability of the hard drive, you are still exposed to data loss, viruses, OS crashes, data corruption, * A N D* human error (who never trashed the wrong folder and automatically emptied the trash, just to say D'Oh 3 seconds later?)

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:40 am

rdavidovich wrote:who never trashed the wrong folder and automatically emptied the trash, just to say D'Oh 3 seconds later?)

I have a friend A. who changed the preference setting of the trash at a friend B.'s computer to 'delete automaticly', without B. knowing it.
A. almost got killed by B. when he discovered...

kylie · Post by **kylie** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:48 am

hubird wrote:I have a friend A. who changed the preference setting of the trash at a friend's B. computer to 'delete automaticly', without B. knowing it.
A. almost got killed by B. when he discovered...

we have a customer having a sheet of paper stick to the wall that reads "I think the use of loaded guns should belong to the administrator's job"

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:02 am

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:03 am

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:03 am

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:33 pm

forget it, double posts or something, when uploading seemed to hang

kylie · Post by **kylie** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:29 pm

hubird wrote:forget it, double posts or something, when uploading seemed to hang

any coincidence with vertically mounted harddisks there? SCNR

ah yes, I shut up, huub