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Date:      Wed, 28 Oct 1998 21:48:42 -0600
From:      David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
To:        Blackened <jmw@panix.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: SCSI Hard drives 
Message-ID:  <199810290348.VAA06834@nospam.hiwaay.net>
In-Reply-To: Message from Blackened <jmw@panix.com>  of "Wed, 28 Oct 1998 20:06:23 EST." <Pine.GSU.4.03.9810281957480.2796-100000@panix2.panix.com> 

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Blackened writes:
> My main question is this.  I was hoping to get a few suggestions as
> to what a good SCSI drive, of about 3 GB (even this is more than
> enough for what I do, but I'd rather go too big than too small and kick
> myself on the rear at a later time), without spending a small fortune. My
> practical budget is about 350-400 bucks.  Would anyone be kind enough to
> offer any suggestions?

I and others have been quite pleased with the current generation of IBM 
HD's. IBM appears to have assulted the SCSI HD market the past couple 
of years with quality and price. Every new SGI system I've seen the 
past couple of years has come OEM with an IBM drive. A StorageTek RAID 
arrived with (24) 9G IBM drives. Sadly the firmware in the StorageTek 
IBM drives is not anywhere close to the firmware shipped in regular 
SCSI drives so mail order drives won't work in the StorageTek, and vice 
versa.

Older 1G and 2G IBM drives were not so good.

Personally have (3) IBM "DCAS" drives, 4G, 5400 RPM, UltraSCSI. Very 
quiet, fast, and cool. Were selling for about $250 to $300 last time I 
looked. Sources were drying up, replacing with a 7200 RPM model.

> One other quick question. :)  I've heard that SCSI HD's get quite hot,
> when compared to their ATA counterparts, and was wondering about
> the validity of this.  Is this only a concern with high performance
> drives that spin at 10k RPM?  Or is it a general SCSI thing?

IMHO its not a "SCSI thing" but related to the fact the SCSI consumer 
is performance oriented and will buy a faster HD that runs hot if 
that's what it takes. You'll notice the spindle RPM is always listed 
with SCSI HD's but I can't remember seeing it listed for an *IDE drive. 
At least not listed prominently beside the drive's capacity.

Don't assume higher spindle speed buys performance. My DCHS at 5400 RPM 
runs circles around Seagate ST15150's at 7200 RPM.

I also have a 9G DCHS09W (fast/wide, not Ultra, 7200 RPM). Had it to do 
over again would rather have two cool 4G DCAS's than one DCHS. Two 4G's 
would be faster if the tasks could be split between the two.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.



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