Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 18:34:18 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@MindBender.serv.net> To: Drew Derbyshire <ahd@kew.com> Cc: Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: lousy disk perf. under cpu load (was IDE vs SCSI) Message-ID: <199709080134.SAA09715@MindBender.serv.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 07 Sep 97 20:20:03 -0400. <341344B3.57D10484@kew.com>
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>Ollivier Robert wrote:
>> I must miss something. There was a time where SCSI was for high-end systems
>> and IDE for smaller ones. Life was simple. Now they're turning IDE into
>> SCSI. WHY ?
>Because you can take an EIDE drive and put it on a system with 1990
>vintage IDE controller, and only take a performance hit. Upward
>compatibility means a lot to any user.
I think it's more because EIDE is cheaper, and there are a helluva lot
of cheap EIDE drives out there. Plus, some people aren't willing to
spend the extra on SCSI, but still want the performance.
IDE has always been an exercise in compromises. EIDE has just hacked
on a lot of turbo-chargers and accelerators, making it much better at
competing with SCSI on the low end. However, even UltraIDE (or
whatever it's called) is still an exercise in compromises, cost being
the primary motivating factor (i.e. get the most performance possible,
while still keeping withing these cost-effective parameters).
Unfortunately, the extra quality and performance that SCSI can
potentially bring, commonly comes at a higher price.
>To me, the entire "SCSI rules" tone some people use reminds of Mac
>users, and I don't want think most people on this list wish for Bill
>Gates to want or need to bail out FreeBSD. :-)
The difference is there are solid technical facts, and a large
high-end Unix workstation market, to back up SCSI's superiority. The
Mac on the other hand... :-)
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Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
Contract software development for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Unix.
Windows NT and Unix server development in C++ and C.
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3,
Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32...
NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others...
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