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Date:      Mon, 8 Sep 1997 11:48:06 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@MindBender.serv.net>
Cc:        Drew Derbyshire <ahd@kew.com>, Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: lousy disk perf. under cpu load (was IDE vs SCSI)
Message-ID:  <19970908114806.25653@lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <199709080134.SAA09715@MindBender.serv.net>; from Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com on Sun, Sep 07, 1997 at 06:34:18PM -0700
References:  <341344B3.57D10484@kew.com> <199709080134.SAA09715@MindBender.serv.net>

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On Sun, Sep 07, 1997 at 06:34:18PM -0700, Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com wrote:
>
>> 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.

Certainly the ability to use a 7 year old IDE controller, when your
modern motherboard includes two modern ones, is not a factor.

> 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.

The annoying thing is that the price isn't that much higher.  It's
just because the volume market is (E)IDE that the prices difference is
exaggerated.

>> 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...  :-)

If technical superiority meant anything to the market, we wouldn't be
in the mess we are today.

Greg



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